


The Weather! Brought to You by Speckle

by CarrierofHeartbreak



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Climate Wall, Comedy, Cute, Danger, Desert, Discrimination, Eventual Romance, F/M, Flying, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hate Speech, Original Character(s), Predator/Prey, Rainforests, Silly, Slice of Life, Sweet, Training, Underdog Story, Workplace, Worldbuilding, drones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27930808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarrierofHeartbreak/pseuds/CarrierofHeartbreak
Summary: Zootopia is a city with many different animals who needs varying environments to live in. The climate control teams are hard at work, making sure that it rains, snows, and shines at all times so that everyone else can live comfortably. Whether it's a simple problem, like a broken sprinkler in the Rainforest District, or a much larger problem involving one of the climate walls, the mammals at Creature Comforts will stop at nothing to keep your snow white and your sunshine bright!Speckle is one such mammal. He's a little rat with hopes of representing rodents everywhere, and he's got his own custom line of drones that will help him on his way to proving to everyone that even the little guys can make a big difference!
Comments: 17
Kudos: 15





	1. Stay Safe!

“Okay, okay! Settle down everyone!”

Almost forty sets of tired, cranky eyes glare up at the overly enthusiastic ewe skipping around at the front of the room.

No one had been talking.

Behind her, an older goat is attempting to set up the newly installed smart board for them to use, but he’s very obviously never used something so advanced before. Within seconds, he goes from cursing under his breath to biting the computer.

A few hushed words pass between him and the sheep, during which she apparently manages to brief him on how to link the computer to the overhead projector. Why she didn’t just do it herself before they arrived is anyone’s guess. Maybe she had been entertaining a lamb’s birthday party. She certainly has the sickeningly overwhelming energy for it.

The smell of coffee permeates the room around them, most paws being warmed by freshly poured cups of joe. There was no cream or sugar available so everyone had to settle with black.

But at six in the morning in Tundratown, you’ll be willing to drink anything as long as it can keep you from freezing to death.

Once the smart board hums to life and shows the screen from the goat’s computer, the white-wooled ewe skips to the side wall and flicks the lights off. The mammals in the room react differently to the sudden darkness, some of them feeling much more comfortable without the bright fluorescent lights blinding them.

Once every eye is adjusted to the new lighting, they can see that the board is displaying the first frame from a video of some kind. A young coyote is standing there with all his personal protective equipment on, his face frozen like he’s suddenly forgotten his lines. But the arrow overlapping his chest tells everyone that he’s just waiting to begin his lesson.

“Okay!” the ewe chirps. “I’m Willow, and I’m the safety technician here at Creature Comforts! You should remember me from yesterday! Haha! I know you’re all tired and just want to get to work, but before I send you all off to your respective trainers, we’d like for you to watch through a few final videos about workplace safety! We’ve got a few different ones that should cover the different districts, so everyone here should be able to use at least a few of these important tips. Gary, if you wouldn’t mind?” she asks, turning to the old billy and giving him a few gestures.

He blinks at her lazily.

She points to the screen.

He looks at the screen but doesn’t seem to be getting the hint.

“Oh, just play the first video, you-!” she slips out of her bubbly persona for a moment and almost lets her temper take over. After a few calming breaths, she calmly walks over to the goat and takes it upon herself to click the play button. He leans back in his chair and lets her do his job, completely unaffected by the curse she whispers to him under her breath.

The attention in the room switches from the bickering bovids to the smart board, where the previously-frozen coyote suddenly comes to life and starts talking, much to the irritation of the mammals around the room.

“Welcome to your first day on the job! I’m Andrew Klaws, and I’m here to talk to you all today about a little something I like to call ‘Workplace Safety’! How many of you out there know what an ‘Occupational Hazard’ is?”

The coyote pauses for a moment as if waiting for a show of paws.

An empty coffee cup hits the board.

“Good! An ‘Occupational Hazard’, as some of you know, is a potential risk to your health and well-being that comes with most jobs! We all want to go home looking the same way we arrived, right? Right! So, in order to make sure all of the employees here at- * _Creature Comforts*-_ can work and live safely, we’ve established a set of work-related guidelines for all workers to follow! Now, Zootopia is a big city with many different hazards! Not only do we have to be careful of the effects that the different climates have on our bodies, be we also present risks to each other! What happens when a small mammal works around a much larger mammal and doesn’t wear the proper PPE?”

The video cuts to an image of a mouse strolling along, trying to act like he isn’t playing in a cheesy workplace film. He steps out of the brightened path to enter his workzone, not aware of the elephant employee walking his way. He’s too busy listening to whatever is playing on his headphones.

The elephant's foot comes down on him, at which point there’s an obvious cut in the footage. It picks up again with the elephant already stepping down, and a whole bottle full of ketchup is squirting out from under his thick limb.

A loud scream that couldn’t possibly come from the mouse plays over the scene, with the sound of chips being crunched following right after.

The grim nature of the scene mixed with the obviously cheap and silly effects actually draws a slight chuckle from the crowd, save for one brown bear who looks sickened by the implications of the crushing.

Willow eyes the crowd of newcomers with a look of exasperation, but doesn’t choose to say anything. Apparently she’s used to this response when showing the safety videos.

The film cuts to the ‘dead mouse’ which is actually just a glob of ketchup with an elephant footprint in it.

“What did we learn?” Andrew asks the puddle. A squeaky voice answers him, supposedly coming from the ketchup.

“Always watch your step!” the ‘mouse’ responds, sounding much too cheerful for what is supposed to be a crushed mammal.

“And what else?”

“Uh...wear your PPE?” the mulched mouse guesses, though it’s obvious that the actor is reading from a script.

“Very good! High visibility clothing is standard here at- _*Creature Comforts*-_ for every employee, not just the little guys! But for any mammal under the suggested height requirement, beacon hats are mandatory! This lets the animals around you know where you are at all times so nothing like the accident shown in this clip can happen to you!”

The goat at the computer lets out a loud snore which startles Willow a bit. Another empty cup flies from somewhere and lands directly in his mouth. Gary chews and swallows the paper cup without even waking, which causes a few more chuckles.

“Shh! Hush now! This is important!” Willow pouts to the class, trying to use her natural cuteness to get what she wants.

She bleats when a volley of cups rains down on her head. The hint received, she stops her fussing and just lets the video continue to play out.

The next scene takes place in a plant with an oven of some kind. It looks unbearably hot and dry in the room where the actors are filming. Andrew is already panting before he even gets his first word out.

“Next, we’re going to... _whew_...talk about locking out! Does anybody know what LTT stands for?”

Another pause for the audience to respond.

Most of the new hires are out of empty coffee cups to throw so Andrew’s visage gets to live to preach another day.

“Great! Glad there’s so many smart cookies among you! Haha!”

A low groan spreads through the crowd.

“For those of you who _don’t_ know, LTT stands for Lock, Tag and Try! This is the standard procedure companies use when they have employees who need to do work inside of machines or anytime your body is in danger of being negatively impacted by energy! First, after getting all the proper permits signed to work inside of something, you will find the safety sheet telling you what parts of the machine need to be powered off. Once you locate the proper shutoff points, you power them down using your personal locks! After that, you ‘Tag’ the part of the machine with the proper color tag, including your name and task! The most important step of all is ‘Try’, in which you try to activate the part of the machine you’re planning on going into. If there is still movement going on inside, that means that not all the necessary lockout points are shut off and you need to go back to find the rest!”

The class is looking disinterested, having heard all of this information in much more detail the previous day. After a whole day of taking online safety courses, hearing the words Lock, Tag and Try triggers each and every one of them.

Willow looks enthralled, but her eyes seem to be focusing on Andrew instead of the actual examples being shown. The wool poof on her head is seemingly more frizzy whenever the coyote is on the screen.

Maybe there’s a _reason_ she plays these corny safety videos.

“Here’s my friend Risky Rick to show you how _not_ to lock out!” the coyote says. A younger red fox struts into the room like he owns the place, clearly loving that he’s on camera. The smug little pup even throws a few winks directly at the one doing the filming.

“Rick _says_ he locked out, but doesn’t think it’s worth double checking or even ‘Trying’ to turn the machine on!” Andrew exclaims, watching as the fox walks right into one of the oven zones without stopping to make sure it’s completely safe.

“Little does he know that he actually locked out the oven _next_ to him! So anyone could just walk up and, for example…” Andrew says before slamming the door shut and bolting it. A frantic banging can be heard coming from inside as the fox tries to get out, his voice clearly distraught.

Everyone watching sits up a bit taller in their seats, eager to see where this clip is going. The promise of over-the-top violence has caught their attention again.

“And with all the doors shut, what’s the stop some _else_ from, oh, I don’t know...starting the machine up?” Andrew explains, his voice still light and pleasant. A loud grinding sound can be heard as the particular oven storms to life and starts heating up. With the temperature set as high as it can go, the screams turn to wails of agonizing pain. The camera zooms in on the door where the fox is supposedly trapped. After a few more seconds, the screaming fades out with a few more disturbing whimpers.

“See? If Risky Rick had remembered to ‘Try’ the machine before he walked in, he wouldn’t look like this!”

Andrew opens the door once the oven powers back down, an entire burnt skeleton slumping out and bursting to pieces on the floor below.

The bear in the back of the room sways from side to side like he’s going to pass out.

“Now, Rick, what did we learn today?”

The skull’s mouth suddenly starts clacking open and shut, as if it’s talking. 

“Always lock out, tag where you're working and try the machine before entering!” Rick’s charred skull tells the camera.

The room full of new hires bursts into laughter and applause at the shockingly mean-spirited nature of the video. What they thought was going to be another boring lecture is suddenly their new favorite thing. Andrew Klaws isn’t just a corporate noface telling them what they already know. _Now_ he’s a possibly murderous loon who is willing to incinerate other mammals for the sake of a lesson.

Could Andrew be puppeteering the skull to make it talk back to him?

“Be careful! You never know when an accident might come up and _bite ya!_ ” the coyote says to the camera with a disturbingly predatory smile.

Willow bleats under her breath as she stares into the canine’s hungry eyes. Gary peers suspiciously at her, sneers in disgust and scoots a bit further away from her.

Everyone else seems to be loving it.

What other dark things will happen?

“Now, this one will apply to a lot of you going into climate control services! Tons of the infrastructure that goes into making Zootopia the home of so many different mammals lie in the climate machines. This includes the climate walls, natural barriers, precipitators and atmospheric simulators! Ever wonder why the sun is weaker for Tundratown than it is for Sahara Square? The magic of engineering, my friends! Zootopia is capable of hosting not just four, but _twelve_ different habitats! A few of the districts contain smaller zones meant for satisfying the needs of the more... _exotic_ mammals. But the size of these zones means that a lot of the machines are hidden high up above the residential areas! So if you’re going into climate control, then you will no doubt be working from heights very shortly! Now a few things about working from heights!”

The room bursts into louder cheering as the seemingly friendly coyote chases an antelope around an elevated platform hidden in the trees, somewhere in the Rainforest District.

Andrew is shown forcing the pleading mammal over the side of the safety guarding. Gravity takes hold immediately and the same scream as the first clip plays even louder, the camera zooming out to show a very obvious dummy falling all the way from the canopy to the rainforest floor below.

Next, the film cuts to a female jaguar walking along and minding her own business. She hears something and very robotically looks up just as the antelope’s dummy smashes into the ground at her paws. It zooms in on her screaming face just as a bucket of some kind of red liquid is thrown up into her face.

A paw holding a bucket accidentally sneaks into frame but is quick to pull itself away. They probably should have tried another take while filming, but the new hires don’t seem to care in the slightest.

They’re rolling around on the ground at this point, tickled pink by the sheer absurdity of the scenario being shown to them.

Is it really supposed to represent the actual risks one might find while working a normal day?

Either way, the recently employed mammals are eating it up. It’s a great distraction from how cold it is in the building around them. Most of them being species not native to colder regions, it is quite surprising that so many applied for a job with its headquarters in Tundratown. Maybe they assumed they would be outsourced to other districts after training.

The pay is convincing enough for most of them to put up with some numb extremities for a little while.

Andrew’s smiling face comes back into view, though it’s from the perspective of someone falling backwards up into the platform with him. His face is covered in an unnerving shadow as he peers down at the viewers.

“Falling Franky wasn’t wearing his harness and paid the ultimate price for it! Don’t let yourself become a Falling Franky! You could even land on someone else if you’re not careful!”

The coyote seemingly ignores the horrified screams rising up from the jungle below as more mammals under him start to notice the gruesome scene.

The new hires don’t laugh as much now.

There’s a genuine air of intimidation surrounding the cold-hearted coyote. Even if the stunts are obviously fake and the blood is either ketchup or sports drink, Andrew is so disturbingly intense with his line deliveries that the mammals in the room can’t help feeling threatened by him.

Listen to his words and heed his warnings or Andrew Klaws will hunt you down and kill you horribly to prove a point about safety!

The video ends with the coyote talking about what they will be covering in the next segment, but a sleeping Gary accidentally flinches in his sleep and rests one of his cloven feet on the keyboard. The video closes and reveals a list of names that had been open on the desktop behind the media player.

The curious eyes in the room scan over the names and take note of how they’re divided into different jobs and locations.

It doesn’t take long for everyone in the room to understand that the names are sorted based on what positions they applied for and in what climates. The ones adapted better to the cold are grouped together in Tundratown, while the rest of the mammals are divided evenly among the other districts.

A few nods are passed around, the general consensus being of approval of where they were assigned. The hiring manager at Creature Comforts did her best to let everyone work where they requested to work.

Willow straightens her blouse and tries to make herself seem less flustered from her staring contest with Andrew.

“Eh-hem! Okay, everyone! Your trainers will be arriving here in a little bit, and will be going over the rest of your safety training. Each district has specialized requirements so we’ll still be in touch every so often! But for the most part, you’ll be learning the do’s, do not’s, in’s and out’s from them! Trust me when I say that the trainers here at CC Inc. will show you everything you need to know about keeping the city safely maintained!” she explains, a few relieved sighs spreading through the crowd once they’re told that they won’t have to be around her peppy attitude for much longer.

She pulls out a marker, uncaps it and starts drawing circles around the different lists of names, connecting them with the names of the trainers.

A few mirthful _‘Ooh’s_ break out, but she does her best to ignore them. New hires are always snarky like this and if she hadn’t gotten used to it years ago, she would have already changed positions. Safety is her calling, even if the ones she tries to share her passion with don’t seem to take her words all that seriously.

“Group A, you lot will be falling in with Mrs. Stella. She’ll be showing you around the different machines in Savanna Central that you’ll be working with from now on. Okay?” she finishes drawing her lines and turns to the crowd. The mammals from Group A shake their heads and give her wide smiles, which she returns. Maybe they’re starting to tolerate her after all!

“Group B, you’ll be staying here in Tundratown will Mr. Howler! Hope you’re used to the cold, because you’ll be working up close and personal with the blizzard machines and ice makers! You guys will be hangin around here for the day. Any questions?” she repeats. The mammals from Group B, mostly white-furred arctic animals, nod at her with equally amused expressions. They probably all live fairly close and didn’t have much of a commute to get here. So they’re all pretty relaxed and less irritated than the warmer-weather mammals.

“Okay, good! Group C, I’ll be leaving you in the care of Mr. Pawpack and he’ll be guiding you through what it takes to keep Sahara Square’s heaters running throughout the day. Hope you’re okay with being overheated! But from looking at you, you all seem to be ready to go!”

The mammals who signed up for climate work in the hottest zone of Zootopia look up at her grumpily, being the ones most displeased with the freezing temperature in the room. A few of them don’t look so good. It’ll be in their best interest to get out of the district and back to their own climate before they actually catch something.

“...Righty then. Lastly, Group D will be packing up and following Ms. Everglade to the Rainforest District, where it rains most of the time and the humidifiers need constant love and attention. A lot of mammals are counting on you to keep their homes nice and damp! Got it?”

More nods and more smirks.

Willow really wishes she knew what was making them so happy. Are they just excited to get to their personal job sites? That’s probably it, since the ones staying in Tundratown are the most laid back. A lot of the others don’t have her thick wool to keep them warm and have to rely on thick coats to keep their body heat trapped in.

A knock at the door signals the arrival of the trainers.

“Come on in!” she calls to them.

All eyes turn to the door as the first of the four trainers enter the cramped room. Immediately, the members of group A can tell what kind of experience they’re in for just by how their trainer enters.

A female skunk saunters in with her large black and white tail swaying behind her. A few mammals back away from her and give her a wide berth, to which she responds with a disturbingly sweet smile. It’s obvious that she’s used to the stigma surrounding her species and is willing to passive aggressively call out anyone who might find issue with her employment there.

“Group A, this is Mrs. Stella! She’s been here for a lot longer than me, and has seen through some of the most successful employees here! As long as you’re willing to listen to what she has to say, she won’t steer you wrong!” Willow introduces before the skunk can do it herself. Mrs. Stella shoots the younger ewe a look that has her shying away bashfully.

The skunk clears her throat.

“Alright, all of you in Group A, stand up!” she bellows. A number of mammals stand up quickly, surprised by the sudden authority being presented. The temperamental mustelid notices that some of the ones who had backed away from her are among her group. This brings a smile to her face as she closes in on them. They can do nothing but watch her approach. Even if she’s much smaller than them, they can’t help feeling intimidated.

“Well well well, look what we have here. You boys looking at my tail? Is that it?” she demands. They give her confused looks, unsure of where she got that idea from. “Because if you’re going to be throwing any looks my way, they better be looks of longing and desire! Do you understand me?”

They nod quickly.

She gives them the same unnerving smile that she did minutes earlier. Then she notices that one of them is looking much more relaxed than the others. The younger otter is still sitting down in his seat, but is paying close attention to her words.

“You part of my group, pup?” she asks him. He nods up at her pleasantly, seemingly not worried by her attitude at all.

“Then why aren’t you standing up like the rest of the pups?” she asks curiously.

“Well, you didn’t say ‘Stella says’, ma’am,” he responds with a straight face. The others standing around look at him in disbelief, like he’s just shoved his head into a hive of angry bees. The room is silent as the mask on the skunk’s face cracks and shatters.

“Bwahahaaaaa! Oh oh, that’s the _best_ answer I’ve ever heard! Oh my, young one, you’ve got some stuff, that’s for sure. And what luck! We’ve been needing more semi-aquatic mammals on the team. Come on, pup, we’ve got work to do. That goes for the rest of you as well! Fall in and grab your coats! We won’t be coming back today so don’t leave anything behind!” she commands. Then she turns her attention back to the otter and her face melts right back into the motherly caretaker she apparently is under her mask of authority. Something about him seems to be cheering her up. The others don’t understand it at all, but if they have someone in their group who can keep the tyrannical skunk happy, then they won’t argue against it.

The room is left significantly emptier once all of Group A walk out. Apparently Savana Central is the most popular option for employment. The climate there is kept mostly mild throughout the year, which makes it the most appealing to a lot of species.

Suddenly, a large white wolf opens the door and peeks through. He looks rather tired, but doesn’t have anything in his face that would hint at him being hostile. He’s actually rather pleasant.

“Group B, I’m Mr. Howler. You can follow me to where we’ll be working from now on. Or don’t, if you don’t feel like it. Up to you, I guess,” he yawns. The contrast between the much smaller but scarier skunk is blatant. The laid back mammals of the second group all stand up and mosey their way up on out of the room behind their equally chilled out trainer.

What a difference in presence. Howler didn’t even fully enter the room, he just said a few words and then went on his way with his trainees in tow. The others still remaining start to wonder if maybe they made the wrong choice in location. Howler seems like an easy guy to work under.

Another knock at the door.

This time, it’s a sandy-colored dingo that steps in. He’s younger than both Stella and Howler by a god bit and doesn’t look as confident in his position. He isn’t frightened by any means, but he doesn’t carry himself with either the authority or the apathy of the previous two visitors. He also doesn’t appear to be too happy about the temperature in the room.

“Aight, my name is Wallen and I’ll be showing those of you in Group C the ropes. You can bring your coats with you, but I’d suggest leaving them in your cars once we get moving. Won’t be needing them where we’re going, obviously,” he says simply. The members of Group C stand up to follow him. Once he sees that he’s got who he needs, he exits the room with his trainees tagging along close behind him.

The room is fairly empty now. At least, compared to how stuffy and crowded it was with all of the new hires present.

Willow looks around pleasantly, happy to see that things are moving along smoothly. Normally, there’s a bit more confusion as to where certain mammals are going. Luckily, they were able to accommodate everyone’s district preferences this time around.

This means she won’t have anyone screaming at her this year!

Gary huffs at the strange faces Willow is silently making to herself. To him, this is just another year with a bunch of new guys who won’t end up staying for more than a month.

He’s used to the whittling process.

Only the mammals willing to put aside their own comfort for the sake of everyone else will still be here by the end of the year.

After a few more minutes of light chatter among the remaining new hires, a fourth and final knock at the door can be heard. Seconds later, the massive frame of a tigress hunches down through the doorway and enters the room.

The chatter dies as everyone gets an eyeful of the beautiful white and black striped feline. It’s not everyday you see a white tiger walking around.

Unless you’re a member of Group D.

For them, the sight will quickly become the norm.

“This everyone?” her voice rumbles the room, causing a few of the remaining mammals to shiver as if shocked by electricity.

“M-hmm!” Willow answers with her usual amount of pep. The sheep is not affected by the tiger’s presence in the slightest. The sight of the white tigress only brings up fond memories of their usual weekend activities together.

“Less than last year...but maybe they will surprise me. Listen up, gang. I’m Rose Everglade and I’m the climate coordinator for the Rainforest District. While I’m not technically a Creature Comforts employee, I’m acting as the trainer until they find a suitable replacement for Boggs. Oh, sorry, you don’t know who that is. Never mind. Anyway, do any of you live in the Rainforest District?”

The paws of the remaining new hires all lift, except for one. She doesn’t notice the outlier, though. A small smile spreads across her face as she sees that she won’t have to deal with any new hires crying about the rain this year. They should all be used to it by now.

“Great, that’s good news. Means my job will be a lot easier. You all understand what kind of climate we’re going to be working in together, correct?”

Her trainees nod back at her robotically. They’re still perplexed by the sight of her and in one case, quite smitten.

“It will be hot, it will be humid and it will be _wet._ Don’t wear anything on you that you will be afraid to get soaked. Make sure that you use waterproof cases for your phones, also. Your company isn’t responsible for any ruined electronics while you’re working. Now then, we can go over the rest once we get to the Rainforest station. Come along now, we have a lot to do today!” Her voice is practically pleasant by the time she finishes her introduction. The prospect of training mammals who are already native to the climate has her in a good mood. The large cat gives Willow a small wave, to which the little ewe returns one of her own with much more enthusiasm.

Gary nibbles on a pencil hungrily.

“ _Friday at the Knock-Turn_?” Rose whispers to Willow as she passes her.

“ _At eight!_ ” the much smaller mammal chirps back happily. The two share a fist bump before the tiger ducks back through the doorway with her new trainees.

For the first time in a while, the room is empty. After all the important safety lessons she went through with them over the last day and a half, they’re all off to learn and grow as mammals.

She’s always so proud of the new hires!

Even if a lot of them end up quitting.

At least they have some useful safety tips for any industrial jobs in the future! After her classes, they’ll never forget the meaning of _Lock, Tag and Try!_

And that’s what makes it all worth it for her.

She'd rather see the looks of irritation than the looks of heartbroken misery from their families in the event of an accident.

Once was enough for her.

Hopefully never again.

Willow starts to pack up her things and Gary is already walking out of the door.

“Uh...e-excuse me? Ma’am?” a tiny voice squeaks out from one of the chairs. Willow bleats in surprise, having thought the room was empty. She peers around under the table, seeing that there are no legs visible.

Who spoke?

The ewe moves closer to the chair, her wool feeling like it’s frizzing on its own.

But instead of a ghost, monster or safety hazard, she just sees a rodent of some kind staring up at her, his tiny body absolutely covered in coats and blankets. He even appears to have two large paw warmers strapped to his body.

She doesn’t know exactly what species he is, but he certainly isn’t faring well in the cold. The poor little guy is shivering wildly and is still holding his thimble-sized cup of coffee close to his chest.

“Um...hi?” Willow offers. She doesn’t understand what the rat is still doing here.

“Wh-where should I g-go? You d-didn’t put me in a...in a… _achoo!..._ a group,” he explains to her through his chattering teeth. Willow tilts her head and turns back to the board in disbelief.

But sure enough, the projector still shows a name towards the bottom, hastily added to the document and only barely visible. The screen on the computer was scrolled up a bit too high to see the bottom of the document clearly.

_Speckle Templeton_

And just as the rat had said, his name is the only one not belonging to a group.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here! So, uhm...Speckle? Which position did you apply for? Do you remember which district?” Willow asks apologetically. The smaller mammal looks up at her and shrugs.

“I’m s-supposed to be temp. I pitched my idea to the higher ups and they seemed to like it. J-just don’t know where to go now…” he tells her.

“Oh! I think I did actually hear about that! Didn’t know you were being grouped in with the new hires though, thought they were going to be treating you like a contractor or something.”

Speckle shrugs again.

“I haven’t actually worked in an industrial setting before. They wanted me to go through basic safety training. And apparently that means getting up at four in the morning and flying into a blizzard to get the chance to freeze my tail off,” he says, only half-joking. The ewe smiles awkwardly at him, unsure if he’s being passive aggressive or not. Luckily, his expression doesn’t seem to convey any resent.

He’s been here the whole time? Even all of yesterday?

Willow suddenly had a lot less confidence in her skills of observation. If Speckle had been a safety hazard, she would have missed it completely and possibly cost someone their life. She promises herself to work harder to make sure she’s aware of her surroundings at all times.

A paw lands on her shoulder and spooks the poor ewe into bleating and racing forward, her fight or flight triggering and making her bolt away from the potential danger.

She’s skittish by nature, but that’s just her biology! Sheep are just careful because that’s the only way they can stay alive!

When she calms down enough to pull herself out from beneath the desk she squirmed her way under, she stands up and sees that the most recent intruder is just her boss.

“Ms. White! I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you walk in!” Willow frets, her face flushed red in embarrassment.

The arctic vixen gives her a pleasant smile before turning her attention down to Speckle.

“Hey,” he says to the larger predator. She thinks he may be intimidated by her for a few moments, but then she sees how badly he’s shivering.

“Ah, yes. Apologies for the temperature. Our heater broke last week and we've been saving it for the new hires to repair. Should be a quick little project. Something small to work on before they move up to the big boys,” she explains. Speckle nods up at her but doesn’t verbally respond.

“Yes, yes, you’re right. Best to get moving. Now then, shall we go discuss your first tasks? We’ll most likely have you train under each of the four instructors for a least a little while, just to get used to what you’ll be doing and where you’ll be going. Sound good?” she asks pleasantly.

“Yeah, that’s fine. As long as I know where I’m supposed to be, I can get there,” he squeaks back up at her.

“Did you take a car or the train?”

“Neither,” is all he says. The fox flicks her ears at him in confusion, but assumes that his answer will come soon enough. He seems a bit excited to show her something.

Ms White turns to her safety technician.

“Thanks, Willow. You can go back to what you were doing. I’ll be taking Mr. Templeton with me, he’s a bit of a...special case. New innovations to discover, and whatnot!”

“Wait!” the sheep bleats. The sudden exclamation catches the vixen by surprise.

“Hm?”

“Is he going to be doing something _different_? He needs a Safe Work Procedure filled out if he’s going to be doing tasks outside standard operations!” Willow pouts.

The fox tilts her head.

“I... _suppose_ he will. Well, then, come along. It seems we’re going to be working with him for a little while,” Ms. White concedes.

The ewe hurries around the room and closes everything out that needs to be filed away or shut down. Within a minute, the room looks like it hasn’t been used in weeks.

Speckle whistles in admiration but the vixen only offers a gentle smile. She knows what her safety technician is capable of when she hypes herself up over the chance to fill in even the slightest gap in the company’s SWP’s.

Ms. White offers a paw down to the coat-covered rodent. He looks between her paw and her face, unsure of her intentions. Her gentle smile strains slightly as she realizes how awkward she might be making this for him. Do rodents not allow others to carry them from time to time? She’s not used to mammals his size, since they don’t tend to want to work around massive machines that could crush them easily.

Speckle steps forward into her paw, his blanket shuffling around him as he moves. He leans back a bit into the pad behind him and she suddenly yips in pain.

“Sorry, sorry! My bad!” he squeaks up at her, moving his blankets around to ensure they form a protective layer between his back and her skin.

“What was that?” she asks him as she licks the poked section of her paw pad.

“Just my back. I’m a spiny tree rat, after all. I’m a bit sharp if I’m not careful enough. Don’t worry, won’t happen again,” he promises. She shakes her paw a little to relieve herself of the lingering stinging, but doesn’t let him see. Holding him was her idea in the first place.

Willow stands at attention, ready to follow her boss to wherever they plan on taking her. The vixen gives them both a nod and exits the room with Speckle resting in on her paw and Willow following obediently behind.

The interior of the Creature Comforts hiring center is a bit monotone and dull, but that’s only because it isn’t usually a hub of activity. There are a few offices here and there that are much more decorated, but the hallways and lobby are fairly empty. The floors are unusually slick because of the broken heater, leaving the ewe in the group having to grip the wall for balance.

Hooves and ice don’t mix well.

Ms. White almost glides across the floor as she walks, making the trip much more pleasant for Speckle. Willow slips and slides clumsily behind them, but she does her best to keep up.

The vixen reaches the main door and presses it open, using her free paw to hold it for the ewe behind her. After Willow manages to get a better grip in the crunchy, freshly fallen snow, they make their way past Group B and head to the parking lot.

Speckle hears a few snippets of what Mr. Howler is telling his trainees and it’s mostly just him lazily pointing to the different sections of Tundratown and explaining what machines they’ll be learning about.

The rodent hopes that the white wolf will be a bit more awake when it’s time to teach _him_.

The other groups have already cleared out, whether by train or by personal vehicle. One of the members of Group C apparently has a car not suited for the snow and is getting assistance from one of the members of Group B to get some traction.

The cold air is getting to Speckle, who isn’t meant to be in such low temperatures. His paw warmers are already starting to wear off, and every time there’s a moderate wind, it goes right through his coats and chills him to the bone.

But he can’t just give up because it’s chilly.

He’s supposed to be proving a point, here!

How is he supposed to advocate rodents being hired for traditionally non-rodent jobs if he can’t even make it through the first day?

He’ll definitely have to make some improvements if he’s going to have to be working in _this_ kind of climate for any amount of time.

But that’s a plan for later.

Speckles lives in the _now._

And right _now_ , he has some coworkers to dazzle.

At first, the vixen holding him doesn’t seem to know where to go. She is probably looking for a rat-sized car or something of the sort. But what Speckle arrived in is way, way better.

“Over there, behind the green snowmobile,” he tells her.

“That’s mine!” Willow pipes up from behind them.

“...Okay!” Speckle tries to answer with just as much enthusiasm without sounding fake. He’s only semi-successful.

The ewe doesn’t pick up on the awkward tone and beams at his shared excitement over her snowmobile. She’s quite fond of it.

As they move around it, a shape can finally be seen. At first, neither the vixen nor the sheep can tell what it is. It’s hidden under some kind of blanket or rat-sized tarp.

Ms. White startles a bit as Speckle leaps from her paw and lands in the snow. He takes a moment to get used to the cold, and then moves to what is apparently his method of transport.

He grabs the solar-powered heating tarp and turns to them, giving them both a smug grin. They eye him curiously, both eager to see what he’s hiding.

With a yank, the tarp slides off.

Both women gasp as the sun over Tundratown shines cleanly off of the smooth plastic frame of Speckle’s quadcopter. The object, vibrant blue with orange and purple streaks, is so much more colorful than anything around it that it hurts their eyes at first.

Speckle enjoys the looks on their faces as he folds the heating tarp and stores it away inside of his rear-mounted storage bag.

Willow has apparently seen drones before, but the older vixen is a bit lost. It almost looks like a toy to her.

“Did you make that yourself?!” Willow demands, her eyes wide and full of curiosity.

Speckles smiles kindly up at her.

“How did you know?”

“I’ve never seen one with a cockpit built under it before!” she explains, her eyes wandering over the custom-made control basket.

“Yeah, it’s my own design. How else would I fly it?” he chuckles. Both sets of eyes above him look down in surprise.

“Wait, you...you _fly_ in this thing?” the vixen asks in disbelief. Speckles backs away a few steps when he sees the stars forming in Willow’s eyes.

Is there such a thing as too excited?

“Did you think I walked here?” Speckle says with a knowing grin.

“So, this is...like your ride to work and back?” asks the overly excited ewe.

“Well, if everything goes okay, it will _be_ my work,” he replies, starting to prep the drone for flight. He makes sure to do a pre-flight inspection to make sure nothing is cracked or loose. The last thing he would want would be for one of the propellers to break mid-flight and send him careening down to his death.

Ever the stickler for safety, Willow eyes his routine with a familiar giddiness.

Speckle checks the battery to make sure it’s connected tightly before moving himself into the little cockpit area. The top of the basket is open, so he’ll have to try to keep himself warm using his blankets and paw warmers once he takes off.

Already, ideas for a closed-cover cockpit design are running through his mind. He can maybe even install some heaters!

They might be necessary for any jobs in this part of Zootopia. Luckily, there are many towering objects that would require his attention, leaving most of the machines at ground-level or on the climate wall itself.

Being the same wall that heats Sahara Square, he suspects that the inside of the machine is nice and toasty. But those are thoughts for the future. Speckle lives for the _now!_

After strapping himself into his safety harness, he starts up the drone using the custom controls built into the cockpit basket.

“Hold on, is _this_ what they’re referring to? This is the innovative design they chose to go with as part of the Inclusion Program?” Ms. White asks, very much bewildered.

With his paws pressed snugly against the controls, Speckle lifts himself up off of the ground and keeps moving vertically until he’s face-to-face with the arctic vixen.

He offers her a proud smile, full of hope for the future of the little guys.

“Yep! Now where to?”

“Well...we should start off going to Savanna Central to see Mrs. Stella, I suppose. Do you know where the Creature Comforts climate station is in that district?” Ms. White asks slowly.

“Got a pretty good idea. Big purple building, lots of seasonal weather effects painted all over it?” he asks.

The vixen nods.

“Sounds good, I’ll see you when you get there!” he promises before lifting the drone higher and higher into the sky.

From his perspective, then two mammals under him are getting smaller and smaller as they stare up at him.

The arboreal rat reaches up and snaps his flying goggles into place so he can see even against the wind.

The city looks so much smaller when he’s in the sky. All the dangers a rodent would normally face are missing when he’s flying. Up here, he’s facing only the risks than any other mammal would have to face while suspended this high up off the ground.

It still tickles him how much safer he feels up here. Just a rat and his drone, soaring peacefully above every problem he’s ever faced.

It’s like an entirely different world.

And someday, he hopes to drag this world down to meet with the reality of everything below.

Back on the ground, the silence is finally broken by an amazed ewe muttering, “ _Working from Heights_ ,” to herself.

Ms. White blinks and turns to her most reliable safety technician with a smirk.

“Okay, then. We best not keep him waiting, yes?” she asks the stupefied sheep.

Willow breaks out of her trance and vaults into her snowmobile in a single graceful movement.

“Yes, ma’am!”

The vixen chuckles and briefly ponders if she has the heart to tell the excited young ewe that she had written all over their brand new smart board with a permanent marker.

She shrugs and enters her own car, excited to see what surprises the rat has planned for them and the company.


	2. Savanna, Ooh Na-Na!

The moment that the little tree rat passes over the top of the climate wall separating Tundratown from Sahara Square, he can feel the warmer air blowing into his face and relieving the intense chill that had been working its way through his body. But almost like hitting an invisible wall above the physical one, the wave of hot air moves in and immediately makes him miss the cold. In a smooth and practiced motion, Speckle untangles himself from his coat and pushes the paw warmers away from him.

He can manage the heat, at least. The wind whipping by him keeps him from overheating and the feeling of air blowing through his spiny back sends tingles down his spine.

The sights from above the desert area of the Sahara section of Zootopia are mostly as bland and uninteresting as the majority of Tundratown. Switching districts is like trading white nothingness for beige nothingness with some palm trees sprinkled around. Soon enough, though, some more structures and buildings become more obvious to the eye. The population density kicks up as he flies over Coyote Canyon and begins entering the actual ‘Square’ section of Sahara Square.

There’s much more to look at when he enters the main focus of this section of Zootopia. Away from the direct blast of the climate wall, there are many more mammals willing to stand the heat and make this area their home.

Speckle keeps his distance from the ground.

The last time he flew low enough to take in the sights, he unintentionally got a few more eyefuls of much larger, nude animals than he had been expecting. Plus, the amount of pointing he got from the surprised naturalists made him more than a little uncomfortable with his position. He didn’t want them thinking he was recording them or anything. So he got out of there as fast as LittleGuy could take him and ascended to his normal cruising altitude.

Just another lesson learned.

Never fly low unless you know what you’ll be potentially spying on.

He has enough trouble with the authorities as it is. The  _ last _ thing he needs to be accused of is illegal recording of mammals without their consent. It doesn’t matter if LittleGuy doesn’t have a camera anymore. The mammals who know what drones are tend to relate them to the footage they take when they’re in the air.

He would have a  _ heck _ of a time trying to convince any court otherwise, especially being a  _ rat. _

Like they would  _ ever _ believe  _ him _ over a larger mammal.

Speckle scoffs darkly under his breath as he continues to fly his drone over the sandy landscape below him. The vegetation starts to pick up density the closer he gets to the Palm District. Once he can see more and more trees, the green becomes the most prevalent color in sight. The sand and dry land peters out, making way for grass and more consistent waterways.

As the Palm District passes under him, he starts to feel a more pleasant breeze start to blow through his fur. A temperature much closer to what his species is  _ meant _ to live in flows into the cockpit around him, kicking out the lingering heat from the very-much-working climate wall. Hopefully those walls should be set for a good, long while so that he doesn’t have to visit them very often.

He might not like freezing in Tundratown.

But melting in Sahara Square is hardly the better option.

His drone flies on through Savanna Central until he passes over Acorn Heights, which is where his destination is supposed to be. The buildings pick up and so do the trees, creating a pleasant enough habitat for the arboreal species to dwell.

This area is overwhelmingly familiar to him.

He  _ lives _ here, after all.

As he begins to close in on the purple building he’s been headed for, he pulls back on the proper controls to start his descent. With a standard drone, he could have it move up and down in the air without any real worry about the effects it would have on an organic body.

With him in the cockpit, however, he makes sure to take it slow so he can let the pressure on his body equal out evenly. He remembers to swallow repeatedly to make sure his ears don’t pop. That feeling is one of his biggest cringe-causers.

The purple building that serves as Creature Comfort’s Savanna Central base is definitely a bit more childish than the job would have one think. If someone were to guess what it was used to without knowing the name, they might come up with ‘daycare center.’

It has rainbows, sunshine, thunderstorms and blizzards covering most of the exterior and purple filling in the remaining blank space. Whoever painted this must have served at least a few years as an elementary school teacher.

The closer to the ground he gets, the more his anxiety starts to rear its ugly head. As an arboreal species himself, he feels much safer looking down at the ground than he does looking up at everything else. Being at the lowest level makes him feel like he could get attacked from any direction at any moment, even though his rational mind tells him that he’s as safe as any other rodent. He’s probably even  _ safer _ , being a good bit larger than a mouse or a shrew.

It’s not like a predator would come up and attack him out of the blue.

He’s not one of the ones of the mammals who actually thinks that.

The ground gets closer and closer, so Speckle drives his drone around to find somewhere he can land it without it being stolen, destroyed or impounded. Luckily, he has many more options when it comes to parking than a car would. If he doesn’t want his property stolen in this case, he can just set it down on the roof or something, where it’s out of sight and out of mind.

And this is exactly what he does.

Instead of the strangely empty-looking parking lot, the rat drifts over to the top of the massive purple building and slowly lowers himself down until the feet of the drone touch down on the surface of the roof. Once he’s certain that he’s stable and the roof can hold his miniscule weight, he powers LittleGuy down and sits back to listen for any tell-tale noises of wear or damage. Luckily, everything still sounds great.

“Whew,” he sighs to himself, happy that the trip through three different districts of Zootopia didn’t wear the drone down too much. It will need a good charging, though, especially after being in the cold.

Speckle unstraps himself from his safety harness and slides himself out of the cockpit. He ducks down to access the shelf directly under the area he was sitting, where a flat black object is resting. After quickly unstrapping it from the basket, he slides it out and reveals it to be a large black solar charger.

It’s already hooked up to the battery, so all he has to do is pull it out and set it down in the sunlight. Right away, the red light comes on to let him know that the battery is charging properly. With this much access to direct light, it shouldn’t take all that long to give it a nice, full battery.

Another successful flight with no issues or life-threatening malfunctions.

He’s not dead!

Maybe next time, gravity.

The tarp comes back out to keep the sun from overheating the battery or even possibly melting the plastic. It’s not so much a risk in Savanna Central, but he does it so that on the rare occasions that he has to land in Sahara Square, he doesn’t forget. He’s a creature of habit by heart.

With his vehicle covered, charging and safe from anyone who might want it for themselves, the little tree rat moves to the edge of the building and expertly scales down the rough brick exterior. It’s much more abrasive than the bright colors and pleasant imagery would imply.

He reaches the ground level fairly quickly and is greeted to the sight of a still-mostly empty parking lot.

For the first few minutes, he just sits on the wall next to the steps leading up to the doors, internally pondering if he maybe went to the wrong building. But a quick glance up to the sign hovering above the doorway tells him that he is indeed where he needs to be.

Shortly after, he sees a few cars pulling in to fill in some of the vacant parking spaces. The vehicles range in size but are all much larger than he is. As they begin to settle into their resting places, Speckle watches as many of the mammals he had seen not too long ago begin to emerge. The first one he sees and recognizes well is Mrs. Stella, with her large black and white tail bobbing behind her as she exits her black van. It looks like her personal vehicle is also used for work, with many tools lining the roof and sides. The other two most prominent features on her van are the two white racing stripes she has painted going up the middle.

Normally, this kind of detail wouldn’t suit a van like the one she’s driving. But since it’s  _ her  _ van, Speckle couldn’t imagine her driving anything else.

He watches as the skunk grabs a stack of papers from inside her van before locking it up and heading directly towards him. Her eyes are turned to the ground, though, so she doesn’t actually see him until she’s already on the steps leading into the building.

Her eyes widen in surprise and she instinctively starts to curl herself around to face her rear at the little rat, but she catches herself before she can fully embarrass herself in front of her new trainees. She quickly spins to make sure none of the others had seen what she almost tried to do. Luckily, everyone else is too busy exiting their own vehicles to bother watching her.

She turns back to the rodent with a look of relief on her face.

“Whew! Almost skunked ‘ya there, little guy. You here to report a problem or something? You know we have a call line, right? You didn’t have to travel all the way here from Little Rodentia,” she explains as she moves by him and uses her free paw to unlock the lower lock of the door. It was apparently designed to have locks at different heights, so mammals of any size could use it. Speckle notices that the lowest one would still be far too high up for him to reach.

“Oh, no, I actually live around here,” he says, causing her to lift a brow back at him. Her tail sways with every turn she makes. Speckle can’t deny that the way it moves is strangely hypnotic.

“No joke? That’s pretty neat. Don’t see too many guys your size roughing it outside the safer parts of the city.”

“Trust me, I feel much safer  _ off _ the ground. All those little buildings just waiting for someone to stomp on and tip over? No thanks!” he chuckles. The skunk throws an amused smirk his way, having to internally concede to his point.

“Sounds about right. So, was there something I could help you with today?” she inquires as she finally manages to unlock the door.

“Oh, yeah. I’m here as a temp. Part of the Mammal Inclusion Initiative. I have to learn about all four sections since, well...I’ll be working in all four,” he tells her casually, completely immune to the look of disbelief on her face.

“Uh, well...that’s neat, little guy, but...you would have to go through the safety briefing before you’re allowed to start training out here. And we only do one or two of them a month. Just got done with this month’s session, so…” she hints, obviously trying to deliver the bad news as gently as possible.

“Uh-huh, I know. I was just  _ at  _ that meeting. Took all the quizzes and watched the video and everything.”

She quirks her brow even higher.

“No joke? Didn’t see you there at all...okay then, what do you feel when you look at my tail?” she asks cryptically, giving her rear a slight shake and letting her large black plume sway with her hips.

“Longing and desire?” he assumes. Her face flinches at how quickly he answered her. It quickly settles into a look of approval as she lets out a small chuckle and shakes her head.

“And mammals say  _ I’m  _ out of place. You sure you’re up for a job like this? There will be lots of big machines and hazardous environments,” she tries to warn. He’s heard it all before.

“Yep,” he replies bluntly. Mrs. Stella doesn’t look all that convinced, but shrugs and holds the door open for him all the same. The rat offers her a nod and scurries down the remainder of the wall and makes his way into the lobby of the massive purple building. Behind him, he can hear much larger mammals making their way up the steps behind their trainer, who holds the door open for everyone else as well. Only a few of them thank her as they pass, and those are the ones that receive smiles in return. The rest still seem put off by what she is and how she acts, afraid to make a sound around her or draw attention to themselves.

The skunk’s little otter buddy waddles his way through the door as the last trainee to arrive. The tip of his tongue is sticking out slightly, which Mrs. Stella seems to absolutely  _ adore.  _ She gushes over him as she makes her way over to the front of the room to address the rest of her new hires.

Speckle notices a few of the mammals looking down at him with confused looks. He hopes they just assumed that he was going to be working with a different group. Otherwise, he’ll have to accept the fact that not many mammals even knew he was there during the day and a half of safety training. He’s lucky someone didn’t just pull out the chair he was in and sit on him.

A shiver shoots down his spine at the thought of being crushed in such an embarrassing way. He already misses the peace and safety of the sky above him. Why does the ground have to cause him so much stress?

“Okay, newbies! Today we’re going to be introducing you to the systems we use to find out where the issues are and how bad they might be! Think of this building as a sort of dispatch facility. We have a number of company vehicles that go out day and night when they’re needed. There’s usually more mammals here, but part of the waterway leading in and out of Savanna Central cracked last night. The night shift is still with the day shift trying to fix it. So we’ll have the building mostly to ourselves for now. You’ll meet the others later...hopefully,” she explains to them, her voice loud and clear. Speckles admires how she can speak in front of a crowd of mammals bigger than her without wavering in the slightest. Her confidence is something to behold.

“Wait,” an antelope says suddenly. “We’re going to be working with the  _ waterways too?” _

“Yup! Hope that doesn’t scare ‘ya! A big part of this job is involving the waterways, actually. Savanna Central might have fewer climate control machines than the other three districts, but because of that waterway, we are kept busy basically maintaining a giant aquarium. Anybody ever have an aquarium?” she asks the small crowd.

A couple paws lift.

“How easy was it to take care of?”

“Pain in the tail,” one of them answers quickly.

“That’s exactly right!” she affirms with a quick snap of her fingers. The new hires look around nervously, a bit concerned that they might be faced with drowning as an unexpected hazard. 

For Speckle, all it does is set his mind buzzing with all the different ways he could build a rodent-sized submersible. He could even fix it up with arms if he got together with someone. It’s a bit high tech for his level of experience, but that doesn’t stop him from dreaming about it.

“Right this way, mammals!” Stella barks out. Her demanding tone jolts any remaining sleepiness out of them.

A particular otter waddles along obediently behind the skunk, the tip of his tongue still sticking out slightly. Among the greenhorns, he’s apparently been affected the least by the news that he will be working around water. The others are starting to realize why Mrs. Stella was so happy about having a new semi-aquatic mammal on her team.

The crowd walks along through the sleek, well maintained walls of the ‘dispatch station.’ There are black-and-white photos lining the walls of what Zootopia used to look like, all the way back to when it was first being constructed. The early years looked tough, since the climates were still trying to be dialed in and not every environment was a success. It takes a lot to  _ make  _ the weather. It’s not just a matter of producing the heat or brewing some snow, it’s a gradual process of forcing out the old biome and changing it to what is needed. And according to the pictures on the walls, the old land where Zootopia now sits didn’t go out without a fight.

The climate wall between Sahara Square and Tundratown is relatively new compared to the natural mountain range in the Rainforest District. Before that technology was available, the engineers had to use the land itself to split the climate in half. Figuring out where they needed to place their ground machines was no simple task.

One of the pictures displays a landslide that was caused when the snow machines managed to toss precipitation over the natural barrier between the early districts, soaking the mountains and washing away the bonds between dirt and rock. From the looks of it, the resulting destruction wiped out most of what is now the land between Rainbow Falls and Ficus Grove. Were something like this to happen again, it would likely result in the deaths of many thousands of mammals.

Just another reason that keeping the climate machines running correctly is so important. The mammals who pay attention to the pictures stand up a little straighter as they pass by, their role in the city suddenly bringing them a great deal more pride. It feels daunting, having the actual fate of the city in their paws, but it’s been like this for decades. The ones who came before them are relying on them to keep the torch lit.

But for Speckle, it’s just a grim reminder of what he’s here for in the first place. Not a single one of those group photos lining the hallway had any kind of rodent present. In terms of representation or inclusion, the smallest animal he saw was a marten.

_ This _ is what he’s going up against.

This industry has deemed the little guys unworthy of employment.

It’s what makes Lionheart’s inclusion initiative such a big deal. Speckle is endlessly thankful for the movement, even if he suspects it was Assistant Mayor Bellwether’s idea originally.

_ She  _ knows what it’s like to be one of the little ones. Out of any of the politicians pushing for his success, it’s Bellwether’s words of encouragement that inspired him the most.

If anything, he wants to  _ at least  _ keep his promise to the undersized ewe. 

As they continue walking along the pleasantly cool tile floor, Speckle trails the others by a bit. He knows it’s safer for him if he lags behind all those stomping paws. He’s just about to follow everyone around a corner when he hears the main door open and close again.

He peeks around the corner and sees two familiar bodies fast-walking towards him. When their eyes spot him, the vixen and ewe let out relieved sighs and hurry to catch up.

“Took you two long enough,” Speckle says pleasantly as they join him on either side. They both have to catch their breath as they walk, with Willow balancing out first.

“Caught...in traffic…” the arctic vixen huffs. “Waterway...workzone…” 

“Ah, yeah. Stella mentioned that. Is it bad?” the rat inquires as he continues following the rest of the new hires.

Willow speaks before Ms. White can.

“Water everywhere! Roads flooded! They had to use boats instead of busses! Safety hazards! So many  _ safety hazards!” _ she bleats, her horizontal pupils darting every which way as if she was seeing it all again for the first time.

She notices that the other two are strangely quiet. The ewe offers them both a sheepish expression and subsequently calms herself down. The vixen has a knowing smirk on her face.

“It was only the citizens coming in from Little Rodentia that needed the Floaties, but yeah. There were still a few inches of water in the streets when we went through. Traffic had to wade through slowly, so it took a bit longer to get here. Speaking of which, when did you arrive? I didn’t see your drone outside.”

“That’s because I always hide it,” Speckle explains. “Rodents have it pretty rough when it comes to owning vehicles. Not a lot we can do to protect our stuff when any other mammal can just pick it up and shove it in their pocket.”

White and Willow offer him a nod of understanding.

“Aaaanyway...got here probably about twenty minutes ago, before anyone else. Stella drove up shortly after,” the rat tells them.

This earns him a surprised blink from the two towering females.

“What, really? You beat  _ Stella? _ ” White asks in disbelief.

“Yeah? Why?”

“She is the  _ worst  _ when it comes to driving safely...she speeds almost every time she gets in a vehicle,” Willow grumbles under her breath, clearly sore over the disregard for safety procedures.

“Easy, lass, easy,” White chuckles.

Willow lets out one more unhappy bleat before retiring back into herself.

Up ahead, Stella leads the pack into a dark room. Speckle can just badly make out the familiar glow of a great many computer screens humming steadily.

The skunk opens the door for her trainees and looks at every single one as they pass her. Again, the same ones who thanked her earlier do it once more, while the others stay equally silent.

But what really surprises her is the sudden appearance of her otter buddy, who takes over holding the door open from her. She looks down at him with a delighted smile, which he responds to by sticking his tongue out a little bit more. Speckle swears that the otter’s eyes go unfocused when he does this, but he doesn’t want to be one to judge.

Stella pats his head and he blows a tiny raspberry at her. She flinches at the noise and looks at him a bit more sternly, but her gaze softens when something seems to click in her head.

The skunk notices Speckle and his companions marching towards her and smirks at the taller two.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, ladies?” she says smugly, their visibly irritated moods clueing her as to why they’re later than everyone else.

“We’re here to adjust the SWP for Speckle, since his situation is going to call for different procedures!” Willow chirps. Her tone is definitely more bubbly than her face looks right now.

“Suppose that’s true. Oh well, it’s always a pleasure to have you two around. We don’t get visits all that often from the other stations. Just as long as you don’t distract my trainees, you hear?” she demands firmly.

“Loud and clear, Ma’am!” Ms. White giggles, throwing up a playful salute to the skunk. Stella smiles in approval and starts walking in.

“Oh, just take a seat anywhere, Speckle. Might want to just park it on one of the desks, though, don’t need any accidents. I know how much you adore my tail, but I’m sure it’s not the last thing you want to see!” she grins deviously.

“It’s a very nice tail,” Speckle shrugs. Behind him, Willow is writing something down in her notebook, probably as a result of the mention of a safety hazard.

As the rat passes the otter that’s holding the door open for him, he thanks him quickly and hurries inside. The otter just tilts his head and retracts his tongue back inside his mouth.

“Is that so? Careful, little guy, you’ll make me think that you’re flirting!” she teases. Speckle just looks up at her oddly.

“Flirt? No, I’m just saying. It’s a much better tail than mine, at least,” he explains while turning his back to her to show off his scarred nub. Her eyes widen, his lack of a classic worm tail having escaped her awareness somehow.

“That looks like an injury. Did something happen?” she asks, her voice full of genuine concern.

“I guess,” he says, shrugging. “Was working on one of the rotors for my drone when it suddenly spun up to full speed and got me.”

“Should have made sure it was powered down,” Willow mumbles, though she isn’t looking at him. Her attention is almost entirely consumed by whatever she’s furiously scribbling into that notebook.

“It took off your whole  _ tail?” _ Stella asks in a shocked whisper. Speckles just gives another shrug before nodding.

“Dang…”

“Aaaand that’s what we’re going to try to avoid for the future! No more losing tails!” Willow chirps as the otter shuts the door behind her and waddles off to find his own seat.

“Right?” she asks as she beams down at the much smaller mammal.

He looks down, trying to find whatever mysterious tail she still sees on him for him to possibly lose.

“...Okay?” 

She smiles and does a tiny dance for them, but they all suspect that it is more for herself. Maybe it’s just a way for her to burn some excess energy.

Ms. White just smiles pleasantly along with the flow of the room.

“Okay, mammals! We got lots of seats to sit at, so don’t bunch up! Just be careful not to step or sit on the little guys!” Stella calls as she takes her place as the front of the room. The computers are all logged into what must be company accounts, since there’s no way they’ve assigned log-ins for the new hires yet.

Once everyone is seated and Speckle is out of danger of being sat on, Stella does something with her computer that changes the screens on every other one of the computers.

Apparently  _ she’s _ in control.

Not a very good use of so many computers, but maybe this isn’t all they’re used for.

“Before we get to showing the lot of you the different sections of Savanna and what we’ll be working with, I got another video for ya. Yeah, yeah, I know. Lotsa videos. Trust me, it’ll be fast,” she explains over the one or two groans of impatience.

Most of the newly employed mammals actually tingle with a bit of excitement when they are told of the upcoming video, however. They have a sneaking suspicion that they’ll be in for another wild ride of a safety briefing.

Their suspicions are confirmed and their days are made when the smiling face of the same coyote from before pops up onto the screen.

A few hearty chuckles and enthusiastic cheers echo out into the room as the new hires rejoice over the return of their hero.

Stella and Willow offer the crowd concerned looks, but Ms. White just grins knowingly.

She knows how silly the videos are more than anyone. She was involved in the creation of them, after all.

What a time  _ that _ was.

This time, they’re treated to a scene that looks like it was filmed in an earlier version of what is now the Savanna Waterway. It’s mostly the same, but has fewer branching tubes for the aquatic mammals to swim through.

These videos must be a few years old.

The coyote is standing on top of one of the tube access doors that are not open to the public. These are specially designed to be opened once that particular section of the waterway has been sealed and drained.

“Hey, all you deep-sea divers and marathon swimmers out there! Today for our lesson in workplace safety, we’re going to be talking about the waterways and aqueducts leading in and out of our city! For a lot of mammals, traveling by water is quicker, safer and more relaxing than dragging themselves across the abrasive land! Those species that rely on these methods of transportation count on us to keep the paths safe, clean and leak-free!” Andrew explains as he gestures for the camera crew to get some better shots of just how expansive the system already was back then.

Willow can barely contain her excitement, not having seen this particular video in quite awhile. It’s a shame, though, since it’s her favorite one.

“Today we have a special guest! Come on up, Speedy!” Andrew demands as a nervous-looking otter climbs up onto the tube next to him. Stella’s otter buddy suddenly looks like he’s seen a ghost.

Speckle notices the similarities between the two almost immediately.

For one thing, they’re both otters.

“ _ Daddy? _ ” a voice can barely be heard. A few mammals look around to see who said that, but quickly give up and return to the video.

“So what do we do when we spot a leak?” Andrew asks the otter. The camera cuts to a shot of the pipe taken from underneath it, while an obvious arm reaches over the top and spills a bottle of water down the front, towards the camera.

Back to the otter.

“Uh...close the pipe?” he guesses. Andrew’s smiling face suddenly sinks and he slides up to the otter like he’s about to tear him to pieces. There’s a deathly glow in the coyote’s eyes that resemble two equally unnerving portals to hell itself.

The otter scoots backwards a bit to get some space between himself and the disturbingly manic canine.

Just as it looks like Andrew is about to kill him, a wide smile lights his face up and any sense of dread is forgotten.

“Pretty much, Speedy Spencer! When a leak is discovered, the first thing we do is to find both ends of that section of the tube and close it off, but  _ only  _ after we’ve diverted the mammals so they can still get where they need to be!” Andrew explains cheerfully. The otter still looks like he’s about to hyperventilate.

The scene changes to a separate section of the pipe, where mammals who would have wanted to enter are turned away by a closed metal barrier. A few of them look peeved until they notice the signs showing them the detour route. Just like Andrew had said, these mammals go off on their merry way to get to wherever they want to go.

Once that section of the tube is sealed off and clear of any citizens, the coyote makes his way over to a drain plug on the bottom of it.

“Next, you’ll want to find your drain hose and locate the nearest drain along the sidewalk. They’re everywhere, so try not to worry about having too short of a hose. Leave that to Jack to worry about!” he laughs.

“Hey!” someone from behind the camera yells unhappily. Andrew ignores the feelings he just hurt and the scene cuts to him already having connected the hose to the drain. For some reason, the otter is inside the tube, looking like he’s trying to find a way to appear like he’s doing work of some kind.

“Now, Speedy here started work right away before getting the go-ahead to start!” Andrew says sternly. The otter looks up in disbelief.

“What?! You told me to get in!” 

“This step here is one of the most dangerous in the city! If Speedy Spencer had waited until the draining was done before climbing into the tube, this wouldn’t have happened!” the canine says cryptically. Without warning, he clicks something into place on the drain hose and suddenly the water from the segment of tube starts flowing quickly down the drain. The otter scrambles to escape the suction coming from under him, and almost makes it.

But he was too close with not enough warning.

Speedy Spencer is pulled into the hose and the same scream from the other few videos plays over the scene of him vanishing into the drain.

The new hires are oddly silent, except for a slight whimper coming from somewhere in the room.

“Now then...since the tube is empty and the detour is set, we can get to work!” Andrew cheers, as if he didn’t just flush another mammal down a pipe. The scene shifts to a sped-up clip of the camera crew, all dressed in their PPE, moving around and pretending to patch a crack. Once they decide the point has been made, the video cuts back to the murderous coyote.

“With the work done and the leak fixed, we can refill the tube and remove the barriers!”

He flips some kind of switch and the drain hums back to life. After a few seconds, the water comes rushing back into the pipe.

A few gasps fill the room as they see red-tinted water gushing into the ‘fixed’ length of waterway. Along with the food-dye stained liquid, a few chunks of red candy also make their way into what was once a clean tube.

The otter lets out a cry and bangs his head into the table, crying over something that the rest of the class can’t really place. Stella quickly gets up from her chair and moves over to him to provide some sense of comfort. She had forgotten just how disturbing this video is to any otters who happen to see it, but none have ever reacted so badly.

“Oops! Well, I guess this gives me a chance to go over the waterway filters and how to sanitize any tainted water!” Andrew starts to say, but Stella quickly shuts the video off to spare the class any more nightmares.

“Hey!” Willow complains, let down that the video was stopped before it showed Andrew removing his own clothes to swim around in the ‘bloody’ water dressed in nothing but an old-fashioned bathing suit.

Speckle just sits at his own computer, his jaw hanging open at the video he had just witnessed.

If that had been  _ him _ in that tube when the drain started…

A shiver passes down the rodent’s spine. These videos might be way too over-the-top, but they seem to be installing a sense of fear in him that will serve their purpose of deterring him from ignoring the safety procedures.

Maybe the ends justify the means?

Speckle turns his head as he hears a small chuckle coming from somewhere to the side of him. He sees the pristine white fur on the back of Ms. White’s head bouncing up and down as she tries to contain her laughter. She has her face tucked into her arms, but the sounds are still coming out.

Apparently her sense of humor is much darker than Speckle had assumed.

“Well...I guess that’s good for now. Anyway, the rest of the time, this room is used to track the reports that come up throughout the district. When something pops up in the system, it’ll show up exactly where it’s coming from, what Priority Level it is, and who reported it. Once we get you all set up with personal accounts, we’ll be able to show you exactly how to interact with the program. For now, though...I think I hear the night shift walking by to gather their things. Leak must be finally fixed. Are you lot ready to meet some of your coworkers?” she asks the crowd as they stand up and gather what little they had brought with them.

As the others start to make their way to the door, Stella is still trying to console the distraught otter buddy of hers. Something about that video seems to have personally upset him something fierce.

Speckle wonders from his place on the desk if otters might have some sort of innate fear of being sucked down into small, dark places.

He waits for the room to empty so he can get down, but the paw of Ms. White suddenly appears again for him to climb on. The rat looks up at her, and her face is just as awkward as the first time she did this.

Speckle smirks and walks onto her paw pad anyway.

She’s familiar enough now for this situation to not bother him quite as much. Plus, he won’t have to look out for any stomping limbs of the returning night crew. They’re probably really tired and wouldn’t be paying enough attention to where they are stepping.

Willow writes a few more lines into her notebook before following, though she offers one last look to the coyote’s smiling face still occupying the screen she was staring at so intently.

Speckle bounces along with the vixen’s steps as she exits the room with him.

Off to meet the mammals he’ll hopefully be working with from now on!


	3. Rodent

“He ain’t gonna work.”

There’s a ringing in the young tree rat’s ears that hasn’t gone away since the first time he saw the moose glaring down at him. It doesn’t matter that he was held in Ms. White’s paws. When a mammal like that looks down at you, you  _ know  _ you’re being looked down upon in more ways than one.

And for Speckle, there’s nothing that gets his blood boiling quite like the assertion that he can’t do something.

“Excuse me?” the rat responds, already getting prepared for the same argument he’s had so many times before. Another day, another discriminator.

The tall, antlered creature maintains his position and even goes so far as to slide his hooves up onto his waist like he’s already bored of having to explain his position.

“ _ You _ . You can’t work. Not  _ here _ . This place is too dangerous for someone like you,” he huffs.

The moose walked into the building as a tired, disheveled and soaked member of the night shift crew that had to stay past clock out. Judging from his demeanor, he is visibly agitated by almost everything going on around him.

“Rudy, what the heck?” one of his coworkers says in disbelief while nudging him. The moose shrugs off the criticism of his peers and continues.

“What? Do you honestly think someone his size could do the work we do here? Jamie, he looks like he could get crushed by someone dropping their lunch! Would you want someone overseeing your lockout who can’t even lift the radio to call for help?” Rudy demands, growing louder already. Speckle’s spines start to bristle as he listens to the bigger animal talking about him like he isn’t even there.

“Mr. Antlerdormi, I can assure you that we are one hundred percent committed to going about this in the safest way possible!” Willow pipes up, trying to ease the tensions. The moose doesn’t even seem to notice her standing there.

“If you have such a problem with me being here, you’ll have to take it up with the mayor,” Speckle sneers. “Lionheart’s the one who started the program. You going to fight him over it?”

“ _ Lionheart _ hasn’t worked climate control a day in his life. He doesn’t know  _ jack _ about what goes on around here and how dangerous these machines are. Do you know how many times I almost get killed a week?” Rudy inquires harshly.

“Hopefully more times than I’m assuming,” Speckle retorts quickly, his response drawing a few mumbles from the animals around him.

A crowd of both night shift, day shift and new hires have gathered around them. Stella is nowhere to be found and Ms. White seems to be allowing all of this to happen, though her face conveys anything but approval.

Speckle doesn’t care that he’s being watched. To most of the mammals around him, he probably just looks like the arrogant newcomer who said something to offend a full-time worker.

But that isn’t the case.

He barely said two words to the moose. From the moment that Ms. White introduced him to the returning night shift employees, Rudy had been nothing but combative to him.

But would the other workers believe that?

Besides for Jamie, the tall horse shuffling uncomfortably next to his friend, the others had walked in after the initial confrontation.

Speckle doesn’t blame them for taking the side of their coworker.

Willow looks like she’s about to hyperventilate, probably from a combination of the residual tension and news that the workers aren’t being safe when she’s not around.

“Oh-ho, wishing death on another mammal. Very mature of you, rodent. But as much as you want to just blow this off as a personal issue, it’s not. I’m not saying you can’t do this because of who you are. It’s  _ what  _ you are. Kid, this is a job with a lot of heavy, fast moving objects that we often get within snorting distance of. You’re just  _ too small _ . Something falls on you, there’s no PPE in the world that will save you. I don’t want to work with you because I don’t want the image of what those machines will do to you haunting my dreams forever!” he spits out, though he’s reined himself in a bit to avoid looking like a jerk.

“Mr. Antlerdormi,  _ I  _ can assure you that his size is being taken into account regarding his employment here,” Ms. White finally speaks up. Rudy looks up a bit and meets her gaze, which he finds to be frighteningly cold. A shiver passes visibly through him and the mammals around him feel the lingering chill.

“Yeah?” he asks suspiciously.

“Yes. Mr. Templeton will be working on his own list of assignments, and will not be working with the heavier machinery,” she explains. Both Speckle and Rudy give her looks of surprise.

This is news to  _ both  _ of them.

Inside of his chest, the little tree rat starts to feel something cracking. It’s a familiar feeling of bitter disappointment that he’s experienced all too many times throughout his short life so far.

It was to his understanding that he would be working directly with everyone else, to be just another worker. He might have to use his drones to keep up, but he’d still have to be viewed as a standard employee.

But if he’s just going to be sent off to do his own thing, wouldn’t that just make him a contractor hired to change the lights or something?

For him, this revelation is nothing short of disheartening. He thought he was on the right path towards  _ actual  _ equality, but it seems that everything he thought he was doing right has just been a facade.

Rudy looks around at the crowd of mammals and decides that his point was made and he got what he wanted.

“Well...good. As long as my life won’t be in those little paws, I’ll be fine,” he declares with a nod of his large, antlered head. The tension in the room around them deflates as everyone realizes that the argument is over.

“Oh, I’d like for you to report to MR at the beginning of your next shift. It seems they need to go over our behavior policy with you again. Just to make sure you remember how we’re supposed to be treating our fellow mammals,” the vixen says, her voice so sweet that it’s sour. The moose flinches as he remembers just who the fox is. 

He tries to say something in his defense, but another look from her shuts his point down before he even has a chance to form it in his head.

“...Ugh…” is the last thing Rudy says before wandering off to go gather his things. His bed is screaming his name and he can deal with the consequences of his actions later.

In Ms. White’s paw, Spickle is bristling with hurtful retorts and words better left unsaid. He didn’t even get to respond to all that before the vixen had shut them both down for good.

He wants to stay angry so he can use that anger to push himself through the rest of the day, but all he feels now is gloomy.

The paw he’s been standing on feels a little less warm now that she’s inadvertently put him in the same place as every other mammal he’s had to fight through to prove himself.

But he doesn’t want to answer the questions that would come from asking to be put down, so he resigns to being carried until she willingly sets him down.

He’s still spiky.

He hasn’t been this fired up in  _ months _ .

Speckle can already tell that he’ll be needing a night out by tonight. He figured he would anyway, but he thought he would have made it to  _ at least  _ the actual ‘work’ part of the day before he felt it.

Suddenly, he’s not looking forward to the rest of the first day of his new career. He would probably be looked at as the new guy that got into a fight with a seasoned worker and told him to go die in an accident.

He wants to see the moose’s argument as nothing but discriminatory, but his words keep bouncing around his head.

As much as he wants to deny it...he can’t fault Rudy’s logic  _ entirely _ . If something were to happen that required help to be called, would he be able to contact anyone in time? If someone dropped an apple on his head, would it kill him? 

He can overcome as many obstacles as he wants with his drones.

But they can only do so much.

He can’t change what he is...no matter how loudly he insists that a rodent can do just as much to change the world as any other mammal.

Speckle lets out a shuddering breath and tries to calm himself down. The vixen holding him flinches a few times when his spines poke into her paw. He’s shaking too much to keep control of where he leans.

He feels something settle against his back, pushing into the sharp protrusions but not flinching back. Instead of Ms. White, he’s instead greeted by the softly smiling face of the energetic ewe hovering next to him.

“Hey. You okay?” she asks in a tone much slower and more comforting than anything else she’s managed to say so far. He’s caught off guard by her shift in demeanor and is rendered speechless. He knows what he wants to say.

He will just blow it off as another biased mammal trying to bring him down.

But the words just won’t leave his mouth, regardless of how hard he tries.

All he can manage to do is let out a long exhale that slightly reduces the pressure that’s built up inside of him. Willow waits for a few seconds to see if he wants to say anything, but he doesn’t. Her eyes narrow in worry, but she doesn’t press him any further.

“Don’t worry. We’ll make sure that you stay safe. Don’t listen to a thing old Rudolph has to say about staying healthy. He skirts around every safety loophole he can find,” she mutters darkly.

“What did Rudolph say now?” a familiar sassy voice speaks up from behind the trio. The rest of the crowd disperses as Stella rejoins them, her otter friend shuffling along sullenly next to her. Her arm is wrapped around his shoulder and he looks like he’s been crying. Speckle can’t help notice that despite the emotional outburst, he seems to have more going on in those eyes of his than he did earlier.

His tongue is not out.

He isn’t wearing his calm smile.

That video broke some kind of mask he was wearing, and this is the otter underneath the  _ blep.  _

Willow stutters out a hurried response that ends up sounding eerily close to the sounds she would make if she were to be stuffed inside of a tumble dryer. The strangely serious skunk lifts a brow at her and instinctively turns her questioning gaze to the arctic fox standing next to her.

“Just a bit of a spat between workers is all,” Ms. White tries to say to stop the incoming wrath of Stella.

The skunk then looks down at Speckle, who is still not entirely calmed down from the incident.

“Speckle?” she asks.

“The moose told me I can’t work here. Said I’m too small for the machines and I’ll just end up getting crushed under something,” the young rat says immediately before he realizes that he’s talking. Stella’s eyes get wide and she whips her head around, searching wildly for the one who dared to question her leadership.

She sees him just as he hurries out of the main door to go get into his car.

Stella almost gives chase, but Speckle is quick to stop her.

“Don’t do that! Just...leave it. I’m okay. I’m used to mammals like that, believe me,” he urges her. Her fiery temper snuffs out in an instant, though she doesn’t turn away from where Rudy was.

“...You sure, little guy? You look a bit shaken up,” she asks him worriedly. He summons enough self-control to give her a casual nod.

“Yeah, I’m good. I promise. Just something else on my mind…” he replies cryptically. This time, it’s Ms. White who gives him a look of concern. Willow just sits off to the side, having resumed her furious scribbling about safety.

Speckle wonders what she could possibly be adding to his SWP because of that incident.

_ ‘Don’t irritate much larger mammals who don’t want you there or they might just drop things on you on purpose’ _ ?

It could be anything, really.

Maybe even ‘ _ Don’t get your hopes up to high!’  _ All he would need would be for Andrew to show up and kill him for not putting safety harnesses on his hopes and dreams.

The little rat lets out a dark chuckle at his own internal joke. Those videos are already influencing his humor, for better or for worse. The sound he makes draws concerned looks from the three ladies around him but they don’t choose to say anything.

The otter is still standing there with Stella’s arm wrapped around him, looking completely disconnected from the situation going on around him. Speckle almost feels bad for being the center of sympathy right now, since the otter’s face conveys much more pain.

Did that video really get to him  _ that  _ much?

It has to be something more personal that maybe only Stella knows about.

This little bit of perspective snaps Speckle out of his funk, if only slightly. It’s enough to calm him down enough to take on the rest of the day.

Even if the rest of the day isn’t all that eventful.

The remaining time before lunch is taken up almost entirely by more procedures and safety briefings regarding the building and its uses.

The computer room is for checking in the statuses of the areas inside the district to see where the complaints are coming from.

The dispatch room has PPE lining the walls for the multitude of different jobs they will be doing in the near future, including the waterway repairs and even some humidifier and dehumidifier work. Speckle had thought that Savanna Central would be pretty barebones in terms of climate control machines, but apparently a lot goes into maintaining even  _ mild  _ weather that he had no idea about.

Just goes to show how much the average citizen of Zootopia takes for granted.

The more Speckle starts to familiarize himself with the ‘headquarters’ building, the more he sees it as his own secret base of operations. He is tempted to rub his paws together in glee and cackle like a madrat just to fill the role of evil scientist.

He fits most of the qualifications already.

Rebel with a cause?

Check.

Working on machines that control the climate?

Check.

Doing it for money?

Check.

All he needs is a little cape and maybe a sinister looking mask and he’ll be good to go.

All hail Lord Speckle!

As the imaginary sounds of cheering echo through his head, he pays little attention to what’s being shown to him. His imagination is running away with his mind again, something he’s tried in the past to correct.

But it’s always been in vain.

With a creative mind comes a frequent flyer account with the dreamscape. And like most of the mammals like himself, he’s almost exclusively a daydreamer.

Luckily the trace amounts of attention he’s able to afford are enough to get the gist of what is being explained to all of the new hires.

Stella isn’t  _ boring _ or anything.

It’s not like she’s speaking in monotone and  _ that’s  _ why Speckle is having a hard time staying tuned in.

To the contrary, she’s actually very loud, expressive and can carry a conversation with herself quite well. She’d make a great teacher.

Speckle wishes that he could have had someone like  _ her  _ teaching him as opposed to the numerous Ben Steer-esque professors he had to put up with during his time at UZ.

He doesn’t blame her at all for his lack of attention span. The fault rests entirely with his own mind and how it functions.

Even if it’s been the cause of most of the struggle in his life, he wouldn’t want to live any other way. It’s just who he is. Ridding himself of his attention span issues would be like replacing him with someone else.

With an hour for lunch, Ms. White and Willow take him out to one of their favorite eateries in the area. It’s a chain restaurant that caters to mammals of all diets, though their specialty is their range of berry-themed salads.

“Ooh, you should try the Cranberry Crescent! It’s my favorite, right behind the Raspberry Rutabaga and the Tangerine Tart! But I also  _ really  _ like the Butterbread bites...dang it, I can’t decide!” Willow goes on and on, having listed practically the entire menu from memory as they walked. Speckle and the vixen carrying him listen politely to her, not wanting to engage and keep her going. They thought she would quickly burn out under her own power.

They were wrong.

“You’re going to love this place, I swear!” Willow chirps as she finally concludes her rant. Speckle just nods and tries to contain the smug look that’s been threatening to tug at his lips.

“I’m not sure if they have anything in your size, but we can just share a salad if we want!” Willow tries to assure him.

As soon as the flustered ewe opens the door, a boisterous voice bellows out its familiar greeting.

“EY, SPECK!” yells a middle-aged badger from behind the chopping deck. Flecks of diced vegetables and bits of lettuce cover his apron, which in itself covers a beat-up white shirt. The fur on the badger’s head is starting to thin, but he maintains a modest ponytail. Willow bleats in surprise as realization hits her.

“Hey, Bart. Howya doin’?” Speckle responds as he jumps off of the vixen’s paw and scurries onto the counter. The two females stare at him as he quickly orders his usual from his buddy and proceeds to the register to pay.

It’s such a strange sight, a badger and a rat laughing back and forth as if they aren’t massively different in size. Ms. White is more stunned by his order, while Willow just stands there and wallows in her embarrassment.

“You two gonna order?” Bart calls to them as he expertly prepares Speckle’s order. They shake themselves from their stupor and hurry up to where the salad line begins. While Speckle was lightning fast with his order, the two of them have to take a few more minutes to complete theirs.

They don’t come out here very often, after all. What they thought was a once-in-awhile treat turned out to be a routine stop for the little spiny rat.

“What’ll ya have, lil’ missy?” he asks Willow first. After a few seconds of blanching every sound in her native language, she looks up to the menu and settles on the first thing that catches her caprid eyeballs.

“Uhm uhm uhm… _ beheheh _ ...I’ll just take the Blackberry Beet salad, please…” she stutters. Speckle watches with amusement as she struggles so hard with something she’s been doing since he met her. While she’s busy mumbling her order, Ms. White takes the time to definitely decide on her own so she won’t repeat Willow’s performance while under the older Badger’s intimidating eye.

“Just like last time. Anything to drink with that? How ‘bout another Grazed Tea?” he offers. Her eyes open wide at his suggestion and she rapidly nods her head in approval.

“Wow! You remember my order? But that was months ago!” she gushes, finally regaining her limitless supply of energy.

The badger just returns her enthusiasm with a kindly grin.

“O’course I remember. Might as well, seeing as there ain’t much else goin’ on up here!” he laughs as he points to his head with the same knife he was just cutting veggies with. Willow flinches at the blatant safety hazard but forces herself to return at least a nervous chuckle.

He’s just as disarming for the excitable ewe as the last time she visited.

Speckle smiles knowingly.

Leave it to ol’ Bartholomew to shock and amaze even the most chatty of mammals.

“And fer you, Madam?” he asks Ms. White this time. The vixen had her order in her head, but lost it at the sudden attention. While he had referred to Willow in a more casual, friendly way, he had chosen to to address  _ her  _ as if she was up on some kind of pedestal. Not used to this kind of respect from mammals who didn’t already know who she was, the vixen lets out a flustered snort and a very  _ unladylike  _ guffaw.

She’s quick to cover her muzzle in shock, but the damage is already done.

Bart lifts a brow at her and shoots her an amused grin, but is polite enough to drop it and treat it like it didn’t happen.

“Yes, I’d like a...just...just an order of Butterbread bites, please…” she mumbles in a manner very similar to how Willow had ordered her own food.

“Comin’ right up!” he tells her before getting to work. Time for the moment Speckle was most looking forward to.

Now, Bart didn’t always work here. In fact, this is only his second year with  _ Veggie Valley _ . Before he worked with mostly lettuce and berries, he was one of the most seasoned cooks at  _ Hillside Hibachi _ . For the two or so decades he worked there, he was well known for being one of the most talented chefs,  _ especially  _ when it came to his presentation. His skill with his knives is unparalleled. In his paws or in the air, he barely had to look at them to know what they were doing.

This is where Speckle first met him.

And as soon as the little rat got an eyeful of that amazing knife show, he was hooked. From then on, he was one of Bart’s most loyal customers and always insisted on waiting for his station to be open, even if there were other tables available.

He was  _ also  _ there the day that Bart lost that special job of his. All it took was one puddle of oil left from the previous chef to slip the poor badger into losing control of his knives... one of which came dangerously close to slicing Speckle in half.

It’s a miracle no one was hurt, but the incident was too much for  _ Hillside _ ’s management to ignore. Even with zero other infractions, and Speckle insisting he was fine, Bart was fired on the spot.

Looking at the badger work now, Speckle can barely believe it took him a whole year to get his confidence back.

Speckle watches excitedly as he begins slicing and dicing the vegetables with an expert precision that only comes with years of experience with a tool. The flipping maneuvers are pretty much just tossed in for Speckle’s sake, and they’re nothing compared to what he used to do, but it’s enough to give poor Willow a heart attack.

Her reaction is everything he was hoping it would be. She starts by bleating wildly to herself with her hooves held to her chsttering teeth, and then quickly moves onto nervously pacing from side to side in front of the salad window.

She tries not to look at the potential disaster happening right in front of her, but she can’t focus her attention on anything else. Bart notices her panic and casually looks up at her, his attention moving away from the knives even though they’re both still airborne.

Willow lets out a shrill squeal as one of the knives starts coming down over the back of his neck. Without even looking, one of his arms snaps back and plucks it out of the air like it hadn’t been moving at all.

Ms. White looks a bit ill herself. The only two who seem to be enjoying themselves are the badger and his rat buddy. The two of them exchange a chuckle as the ewe tries to calm her racing heart.

The knives settle against the counter and, like magic, all of their orders are sitting there in fancy bowls. To Speckle, they’re art. Art made by an artist. To the other two, it must seem like a miracle that there isn’t a brand new  _ red _ sauce covering their food by now.

The terrified ewe stutters to herself and just moves forward to pay for her food.

Ms. White does the same but is completely silent.

They’re completely baffled by this impromptu show courtesy of the badger. Both of them have eaten here multiple times. Why haven’t they seen him do anything like this before?

Their answer rests with the smiling spiny rat, who is the last to pay. The badger shares a few more words with Speckle before he slides them their orders and bids them a good lunch and a better day. When the other two get a gander at what Speckle ordered, they can’t help but stare at him in disbelief.

Instead of a rodent-sized serving of salad like they thought, he instead grapples onto a bowl as big as he is, filled to the brim with greens, cucumbers and crickets.

“You eat insects?” Willow blurts out before she can stop herself.

“Uh-huh,” the rat replies simply. He doesn’t want to make her feel like she offended him when it was probably a valid question to someone who knows little about rats.

“They add the crunch, little miss,” Bart jokes. “Just like your croutons!”

The ewe looks down at her little bread bites, suddenly imagining that they have legs and wings.

Ms. White picks up her order of Butterbread bites as she moves to the register. Seeing that Speckle is struggling somewhat with his relatively giant bowl of salad, she moves to lift it for him.

“No! I got it,” he squeaks up at her with a suddenness that makes her flinch her paw back to her body.

“Speck, my boy, aren’t you going to have to show these ladies to an actual table?” Bart pipes up without even glancing away from the cash register. A few loud sounds come from the machine, each one making the rat’s ear flick.

“...Yeah, I guess. Okay...can you get this?” he begrudgingly asks the vixen that towers over him.

“Sure?” she responds.

“Don’t take it personally, Madam. He usually eats around the back of the counter so we can chat. Doesn’t usually have to carry the bowl. Thinks he can do anything any larger mammal can!” Bart chuckles.

Speckle doesn’t speak up at this, choosing to instead sulk by his food as he waits for it to be lifted for him.

Willow writes a few more sentences into that notebook of hers, which draws a few irritated flicks of the ear from the morose rodent.

After paying for all the food, the trio head to find an actual table to sit at. Speckle has to ride on Ms. White’s shoulder since her paws are busy carrying their meals. The arctic fox glances down at his food as she walks, wondering how someone his size could possibly finish it.

Just as they settle down at a humble little booth, the badger host walks up to the table and sets down a couple bottles and a box.

“Forgot your drinks, ya did,” he smiles.

On the table rests Willow’s Grazed Tea, a sparkling water for the vixen and a medium-mammal sized juice box for Speckle.

The two females watch as the rat excitedly drags his juice closer to him and climbs on top of it to stab the straw in.

They look to Bart.

He has his arms folding against his burley chest and is giving them a smug grin. He knows exactly how amusing Speckle’s antics must be for someone who hasn’t spent any time around him yet.

With simultaneous shrugs, the two start munching away at their food while Speckle goes through his normal routine of positioning his platter in such a way that he won’t have to keep climbing up and down to eat and drink.

They can’t help but watch him.

It comes so naturally to him and he doesn’t seem bothered  _ at all _ that he could use the bowl his food came in as a tub if he really wanted to.

Bart walks back to the counter, and the first thing to fly from Willow’s lips is “What was with the knives?!”

Speckle looks up from his food with a cricket held in his paws. It’s already dripping with ranch dressing.

“Oh, Bart? He used to be a hibachi chef,” he answers.

“But...we’ve ordered from him before! He never did all... _ that… _ ” Willow ponders.

“Yeah, he only really does it for me. He knows I won’t get spooked by it.”

“Oh…” Willow sighs. Whatever conspiracy she was brewing up in her head deflates.

“...Still dangerous, though…” she pouts.

“I trust him,” Speckle says with a shrug.

Some time passes as they eat. Ms. White is rather ravenous with her food once she gets the first taste in her mouth and finishes first. Willow is surprisingly dainty with how she eats, which is a stark contrast from the way she acts.

She finishes second.

This leaves Speckle as the last one eating, his tiny munching sounds filling the air around the booth. Willow tries to ignore the sounds of his snacking on the crickets, but her ears still flinch with every crunching noise that doesn’t come from the lettuce or cucumber.

He finishes a surprising amount of the salad before he starts slowing down. He seems to realize that there’s still a good bit of food left and tries even harder to finish all of it.

“Dang it, Bart...overfilling my bowl again…” he complains as he tries to fill what little space is left in his body with the tasty greens.

The crickets are gone by the time he is forced to give up and have his food boxed up for him. Bart does so with glee, ignoring the rude gesture that the rat throws his way.

Willow and White watch the rat as he practically rolls onto his side. He’s certainly a different shape now than when he started eating.

“Oof…” 

“Speckle?” Willow asks.

“Yeah…?”

“Why did you stuff yourself? You could have ordered a normal portion for much cheaper…” she reasons.

“And let them win? Pfft, no…” he scoffs, almost gagging as he does so.

“Who’s  _ them _ ?” Ms. White questions.

“You know... _ them.  _ The ones telling the little guys what they can and can’t do!” he exclaims through a muffled, squeaky burp. “They say we have to stick to our little corner of Zootopia and live our little lives...and I’m trying my hardest to prove them otherwise!”

“...Speckle, is this why you signed up to work here?” the vixen suddenly asks with concern in her voice.

The rat sits up and looks her square in the eye.

“I signed up because I honestly think I can use my skills to make a difference. Me wanting to prove something just made it an easier decision when they announced the inclusion initiative.”

The table is quiet for a few minutes as each mammal ponders what has been said. For Ms. White, it’s a revelation into what made the rat decide to apply...and why Rudy’s words had bothered him so much. For Speckle, it’s another reminder of how few mammals  _ actually _ believe in him, despite their friendly exteriors.

He  _ knew _ it wouldn’t be easy going in.

He keeps having to remind himself not to hold it against the good mammals who just don’t know any better.

If he wants to convince them that rodents can do just as much good in the world, he’ll just have to try his hardest to prove it.

Willow is oddly distracted by something going on behind Ms. White’s head. Speckle notices and turns to see what she’s looking at.

The television mounted in the corner of the room usually just has the news playing, unless it’s just Bart and Speckle in the store. In those rare cases, they turn it to something more violent and action-packed.

Instead of the normal news anchors blathering about which roads are clogged and whatnot, there’s an actual conference of some kind being broadcasted.

“Hey, Bart!” Speckle squeaks. The older mammals nose sticks up over the side of the counter walls questioningly. “Can you turn the volume up?”

The nose sniffs twice and then disappears. A few seconds later, the volume bar appears on the screen and fills itself almost all the way to the right.

Speckle turns himself all the way around and squints as he tries to make out what is being shown.

It’s the mayor.

The massive lion is talking loudly to a crowd of onlookers about something having to do with the ZPD.

When Speckle hears the words  _ ‘Mammal inclusion initiative’ _ leave the lion’s lips, he sits up a bit straighter and perks his ears to try to make out as much of the broadcast as he can.

Just behind the lion, he sees a familiar face. The tiny form of Dawn Bellwether stands awkwardly at his side, barely reaching his knees.

_ “...Very first rabbit officer, Judy Hopps!”  _ announces Lionheart. Speckle feels his little heart skip a beat as he watches the small form of a doe, clad in her police uniform, walk up onto the stage to be presented with her badge.

“No way…” he mumbles to himself.

A  _ rabbit _ cop.

One of the most directly dangerous jobs in Zootopia...and a  _ rabbit  _ made it in.

“Wow, looks like Lionheart’s inclusion thing is actually working, eh?” Bart says from behind her counter.

“Bet you anything it wasn’t even  _ his _ idea,” Speckle shoots back without thinking. The badger’s nose peeks up over the wall again.

“Wuddya mean, Speck?” he asks.

“Have you actually met that lion? Takes credit for darn near everything, even if the mammal who  _ actually  _ did it is still standing there. No, I’ll bet that it was all Dawn’s idea.”

“Dawn?” the badger questions.

The look on Willow’s face sinks somewhat as she realizes who Speckle is referring to.

“ _ Assistant Mayor Bellwether _ , sorry. She told me to call her Dawn,” the rat explains bashfully.

Now he has the attention of everyone around him, even the other few customers still eating at their own tables.

“You’ve met them both?” Willow asks.

“Well, yeah. Remember why I’m able to work here in the first place? Technically I’m employed by those two as part of the initiative. I had to spend some time around them signing papers and release forms and whatnot. Got to hang out for the better part of a day around Dawn and the Mayor.”

“You’re talking about Bellwether like you’re quite familiar with her,” Ms. White says with a sly grin. The look on Willow’s face turns to one of horror.

Bart gets her insinuation but Speckle misses it entirely.

“Of course. She’s like me,” he responds with a shrug as he continues to watch the ceremony. Hopps looks to be almost the same size as the diminutive ewe on stage with her. His heart aches a bit as he sees Dawn trying to get into frame after Lionfart shoves her back so he can take pictures with his newest campaign fuel.

“What do you mean by that?” Willow asks suspiciously.

“We’re  _ little _ guys. She gets it. She knows exactly what it’s like to be looked down on like she isn’t worth anything,” Speckle states with an air of confidence.

“Hmm…” Willow hums to herself in thought.

“Why? Do you not like her?” he inquires.

“...I...well, I...just...don’t trust her, I guess…”

“Why?” asks the very-much baffled rat.

“Just...look at her! She’s about the same size as the rabbit! She acts all shy and nervous all the time, but I think she’s up to  _ something _ . All that fidgeting and scurrying around almost like a…”

“...A rodent?” Speckles finishes for her wirh little emotion in his voice.

The entire restaurant goes silent.

Willow’s eyes shoot open.

Even Ms. White is at a loss for words.

Bart just slips back behind the wall to continue his work. This is one of those situations he doesn’t want to insert himself into.

“N-no, I...I didn’t mean…” the ewe stutters in an attempt to save herself from pure shock and guilt. Speckle just nods his head and turns back to his box of juice.

Ms. White can see right through the mask he’s trying to wear to make it seem like he’s unaffected. He’s hurting inside and she knows it.

“Are we all done?” he asks with a monotone voice.

Willow looks like she’s ready to shear herself in sheer embarrassment. But she looks down at the table and nods.

The vixen gives them both worried looks.

She nods as well.

“Good. We better get back to work before we’re missed. Ms. White, if you wouldn’t mind helping me with my food again…” he asks. Compared to the way he acted before they had sat down to eat, Speckle almost seems like a shell of his former self.

Willow is the same way, stewing inside herself as she laments her choice of words around him.

Bart bids them farewell as they leave.

Speckle offers a half-hearted wave.

Willow only a nod.

The last thing Ms. White sees as she walks out of the restaurant is the concerned expression adorning the badger’s aging features.

She shares his exact sentiment.

For the little spiny rat, the rest of the day passes in a blur. After lunch, they rejoin Stella and the rest of the new hires. Her otter friend seems to be in better spirits now, but is rarely seen anywhere else other than at the skunk’s side.

He still isn’t going back to any of the ‘cutesy’ mannerisms that he was using before. He’s actually acting rather serious now.

The group meets with the active day shift workers a few more times, all of whom are much friendlier than the exhausted night shift had been. They are more than willing to coach the new mammals in their processes and daily tasks. This gives Stella a break from talking and she makes sure to drink plenty of water to get her commanding voice back into top form.

They even get to go out with the day shift crew to watch as they fix one of the many air conditioners that are hidden in plain sight around Savanna. This one happens to be located behind a bush lining the main road in and out of the district.

Despite his foul mood, Speckle can’t help trying to figure out how many similar machines his eyes have been passing over all this time. He might actually have to start looking just to sate his curiosity.

The repair only takes an hour or so, which leads them pretty close to the end of the shift.

When the new hires arrive back at base with the day shift, the night shift workers are just starting to come back in. Speckle bristles as he sees the same moose from that morning walking by, but Rudy doesn’t pay him any mind.

He has other things to worry about.

The first on his mind being the upcoming meeting with HR about his conduct.

Once he’s out of sight, the rat is able to calm himself down and remove his spines from the pad of Ms. White’s paw. She sucks back some pained whines for his sake and sets him down on the front counter.

Stella has all the new hires gathered.

“Well, that was quite an easy day, but the first one is always the longest and most  _ boring _ . Tomorrow we’ll get into some of the  _ nitty-gritty  _ of your upcoming responsibilities. But for tonight, I’ll just wish you all a good evening. Be back here tomorrow morning, bright and early! The climate machines don’t get days off, right?” she jokes.

The sleepy crowd of newbies offer her a few sounds of agreement as they start to get ready to clock out and go home.

“Speckle, can I talk to you really quick…?” comes the trembling voice of the ewe he spent most of the day with.

He looks into her large, horizontal pupils and can tell right away that she is hurting. The rat would much rather ignore it and just try to excuse it as another mammal not knowing about their own biases, but Willow seems desperate to speak her peace.

Ms. White had vacated the area once she saw her assistant moving in on him.

Speckle nods without a word and faces her, waiting for her to begin.

“I...I’m really,  _ really  _ sorry for what I said earlier. I honestly didn’t mean it like that, my feelings towards Bellwether are just...mostly personal. I don’t think that rodents are devious because they scurry, I swear! Ugh, this isn’t coming out right, either…” she grumbles, leaning down and banging her head against the counter.

He stares at the ewe.

For all the times someone has hurt his feelings...very  _ rarely  _ have they actually apologized. And if they had, it was always with this air of ‘I’m only doing this because someone told me to.’ 

But he can tell that Willow is honestly broken up about what she said.

And if he is honest with himself,  _ she  _ isn’t really the one that said it. He heard the word ‘scurry’ and just finished the sentence for her in the worse way he could have imagined. For all he knows, she wasn’t going in that direction at  _ all. _

It looks like he went and assumed the worst of someone again because of what he feared they could be thinking about him.

Speckle lets out a breath and moves to the fluffy ball of wool that sits atop Willow’s head.

He doesn’t know what to do with it at first. Are there social stigmas against touching a sheep’s wool? As much as he likes to think he’s a champion for equality among species, he knows very little about the other species he wants to be equal to.

Without knowing what to do, he just wraps his arms around the wool and hugs it until he feels her actual head.

Her head is, oddly enough, a lot further in than he was expecting, which leaves almost his entire body engulfed in fluffy wool.

The softness and warmth he feels is a shock to his system, making him melt into her almost instantly.

“Sooo  _ fluffy… _ ” he squeaks as he moves his arms around inside her poof, trying to feel it all over himself. It’s  _ so  _ much better than the sharp, spiky sensation he usually has to endure because of his spines.

“Uhh...does this mean...we’re  _ cool…? _ ” the ewe’s voice breaks him out of his trance. Realizing that he’s making a fool of himself, Speckle quickly jumps back and tries to fluff up her wool to hide the rat-shaped indent he had made.

“I’m sorry, too.”

The ewe flinches.

“W-what? What are you sorry for?”

“I wasn’t fair before,” he sighs. “ _ You  _ didn’t actually say anything that bad. I said it for you and got myself upset over what you  _ could  _ have said...I do that a lot. I’m sorry.”

“Oh...well, uh…” she stutters, thought he can feel her old self starting to flow back into her.

“I forgive you…” she mumbles, though he can tell she is trying to hide a relieved smile.

“But...do you really not like Bellwether? I mean, she’s been nothing but nice and supportive to me when I went there about the initiative.”

“I...I don’t know, it’s hard to say why, but I just get a weird feeling when I look at her, like I’m being lied to just by the way she  _ smiles _ . Maybe it’s nothing…” she explains in a much better way than she did last time.

Speckle still doesn’t really see what she’s seeing, but maybe it’s just something he’ll have to live with. They don’t  _ need  _ to share the same opinion about Dawn for them to work together. He’ll just have to keep it one of the topics that seldom gets brought up.

“Okay…” he responds with another patting of her wool.

“...You can do that some more if you want to. It feels nice…” she tells him shyly.

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

The next ten minutes consists of him rolling himself around in her poof and acting like a kit all over again.

Willow walks out of the building with him still rolling around on her head. She was worried about his spines digging into her scalp, but luckily, her wool forms a thick enough barrier to keep her from feeling the business end of his species’ natural defense.

Outside, they find Ms. White waiting for them with the rest of Speckle’s lunch boxed in her grip. She looks concerned at first but her face relaxes when she sees that he’s sitting in the cotton-candy-like ball of wool on her head. It’s a pretty cute sight, seeing them acting like this. Only a little while ago, they could hardly look at each other.

Speckle notices the otter walk by them, having been the last of the new hires besides Speckle to leave. The rat almost calls out to him to ask how he’s doing, but is stunned silent when he sees the absolute  _ monster  _ of a truck that the otter ends up climbing into.

That thing looks like it could fit an elephant!

How does he manage to drive something like that? He probably can’t even see the top of the steering wheel, let alone over it!

But the otter doesn’t seem to have an issue, as he starts the massive truck and drives it out of the parking lot without incident.

All three of them try to say something, choke it back and give up. When witnessing something like that, it’s best to just let it go. It happened and there’s no use trying to go into details.

“Shoot, how will you be getting this back home?” the vixen asks as she looks between the rat and his leftover salad.

“Hold on just a sec, I’ll be right back down,” Speckle suddenly says before launching himself off of Willow’s poof and landing on the cement railing leading down to the sidewalk.

The ewe is quick to scribble a few more notes down, probably about him jumping from heights. Ms. White is just happy to get her assistant back.

The rat quickly and expertly scales the wall the same way he had that morning, but going the opposite direction. The two under him stare in awe as he is able to seemingly latch onto the smallest ridges in the wall to pull himself up with.

Within a few seconds, he’s over the top of the roof and Willow is already freaking out. He wasn’t wearing a harness of any kind!

They can hear some movement, but can’t see what he’s doing. That is, until they hear a familiar electric motor sound and see his bright blue orange and blue drone lifting itself over the side of the roof.

It gently descends until it’s hovering at muzzle height with Ms. White. Speckle leans to the side of his basket and calls out to her, having to squeak a bit louder to be heard over the whirling blades.

“I dropped the net! Just slide it in and tighten the string!” he calls to her. The vixen seems a black tangle hanging below the hovering drone that resembles a sports bag. There’s a drawstring and clamp connecting it all, something that the fox is familiar enough with to get the picture.

She carefully slides the boxed leftovers into the net and pulls the drawstring tight. And just like that, Speckle has a hold of the rest of his lunch, ready to take home and enjoy for dinner.

“Thanks! Seeya in the morning!” he shouts down to them while ascending back to a more comfortable cruising altitude.

“See you tomorrow!” the vixen calls up to him.

“...Thanks for not being mad at me anymore!” Willow chooses to say. Speckle offers her an awkward wave right before flying out of sight.

The day might have had a happier ending, but it was still a long and  _ tiring _ day. A lot had happened and most of it was already taking its toll on his nerves.

...Yeah, he  _ definitely  _ needs to go out tonight.

Is the  _ KnockTurn  _ open?

Maybe if Jeanette isn’t too busy...


	4. Opposites

The trip back home might be mostly silent, except for the hum of the drone in his ears, but the young rat’s mind is buzzing with activity. He tries to process the events of the day, storing what needs to be remembered and trying to forget the more stressful, unnecessary parts.

If only he could just delete the moose’s words from his head.

But he can’t.

They’re  _ there _ and they’re  _ annoying _ .

He really doesn’t want to think any more about the ups and downs of the day he just experienced. Already, he can feel the tingling in his body that craves the thumping bass and static hum of live music. He leans forward in his seat a bit to make it seem like his drone is going any faster.

He just wants to get home.

The sun is completely absent from the sky’s graces as he flies. It’s truly nighttime now and the beauty of the city starts to shine even brighter under him. The landscape that once was a watercolor painting becomes a vibrant screen of lights, colors and activity.

Zootopia really comes to life at night, unlike anything he could have ever imagined.

Every time he sees this, it reaffirms his decision to move to Zootopia in the first place. It might be a lot more dangerous for him where he is now, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. Living up in the trees is nice, but Speckle would have gone crazy is that’s all he ever got to experience in life.

The air is clear tonight.

It’s a bit chilly this high up, but it’s still not  _ nearly  _ as cold as what he has to put up with back in Tundratown. It’s a pleasant breeze that he can feel flowing through his fur and even back into his spines.

A relaxed shiver passes through him. Up in the sky, he can barely remember why he was even worked up before. Those little issues from down below don’t mean a thing when you’re so high above them. Somewhere on the ground, Rudy is probably mulling his way through his shift after getting an earful from Mammal Resources.

And it doesn’t matter.

Because Speckle is so high above those petty things that they are little more than a tingle at the back of his head.

He knows that reality will catch up to him once he lands, but for the moment, he’s content to just melt away into the open air and imagine he’s little more than a traveling cloud.

Nothing matters.

He’s  _ soaring. _

_ Nothing  _ can get him up here.

The only thing that would make this better...would be some music. Maybe he can make some space in his next drone to fit a radio in? Some satellite radio would be nice. Maybe he can even find a way to connect it to the internet for some playlist action!

His head lights up with possibilities for his next creation. This one will have to be more suitable for work. LittleGuy is a great drone, but it’s specifically built to travel around Savanna. The cockpit is open to allow the air to pass through it and it has no defenses against extreme temperatures. If he’s going to be working in Sahara Square and Tundratown, he’s going to have to give it heat and air conditioning somehow.

He hasn’t worked with insulation before…but his new job should have plenty of chances for him to pick up some knowledge about what materials he’ll need to use.

Maybe a fiberglass outer shell? Glass is supposed to be a good insulator, right?

Another shiver passes through him, this one stemming from his excitement. His inspiration, when it strikes, hits him  _ hard  _ and makes it difficult for him to concentrate on much else until he starts working on it. His head will be buzzing with activity for a good while.

He’s so busy thinking about the plans for his next drone that he doesn’t notice that he’s quickly approaching his residence. A silent curse passes through him as he quickly descends to where he should be.

The trip between his house and the Creature Comforts building isn’t far. That’s good. He doesn’t have to deal with normal traffic anyway, but it still leaves him the ability to wake up later each morning and maybe get some breakfast before clocking in.

When he starts working in the _other_ districts, this will be a much different story…

The blistering heat of Sahara Square.

The bitingly freezing chill of Tundratown.

The consistent downpours of the Rainforest District.

If he is to work in these environments, he’s going to have to build something that can withstand the demands of all three districts.

And that's not even considering what he’ll have to build in order to work underwater…

Through the dark, his drone’s bottom lights start to illuminate the familiar beige landing zone he’s descended towards so many times before. The red circle with an ‘H’ becomes clearer the closer he gets.

The landing circle was more intended as a joke than anything. The balcony is plenty big enough to land anywhere else. But after taking off and returning a few times in the past, he noticed how convenient the placement of the circle was. It was almost always exposed to the sunlight during the day, as opposed to the storage zone against the window where the other drones sat dormant. They are hidden in the shadows of the roof most of the time. This sets up a satisfying habit of him parking whatever drone he needed for the day in the circle to charge until he is ready to go. The rest are covered with their tarps and safe from the elements.

The circle  _ also  _ makes it easier to aim his landing, especially at night. He just has to peer a bit over the side of the basket to see where the lights are relative to the circle’s circumference.

This is exactly what he does.

After making sure to set the boxed salad down a little ways outside the circle so he doesn’t land on it, he returns to the circle to land LittleGuy.

As he gets close to the floor of the balcony, he evens his positioning out and looks over to see where the lights are. It’s a bit outside the circle, so he slides the drone back until the light is completely inside the red shape.

Satisfied with his descent, he finishes it and lands gently on the wooden balcony. With a few button presses, the rotors on LittleGuy power down and slow to a stop. The lights flick off at the same time, which would have left him in near total darkness if it hadn’t been for the generous amounts of light pouring over him from the massive window.

He goes through his normal routine of checking for damage and making sure the batteries are still working as intended. Happy with the expected results, he covers LittleGuy with its solar tarp and walks over to detach the remains of his salad. He figures he can just wind the net back up in the morning.

It only takes a few seconds to undo the straps, but dragging to the salad over to the window is another matter entirely. Even half-eaten, it still weighs about as much as he does. He uses all of his strength to slowly slide the box closer to the window.

The window itself, more of a sliding glass wall to him, is one of the first signs that the rat doesn’t live in Little Rodentia. In fact, his living situation is one of the farthest things from what someone of his species would be expected to settle with.

Instead of a tiny modular house with rodent tubes all over it, Speckle made his home inside the house of one of his best friends in the entire world. She’s someone who understands what he’s going through and has always offered an ear for him to vent into.

It makes sense that she understands his struggles. In a way, she has to deal with the same exact thing as he does, only...opposite.

She makes her presence known as she slides the massive glass window open for him to let him inside. He startles slightly as he sees her massive head hovering over him.

“Geez!...Oh, hey, Jojo,” he manages to greet her through his mild heart attack. Her wide eyes move around him, scanning for injuries and softening when she doesn’t see any.

“Back in one piece, huh? I half-expected them to mail you back as a pancake,” the humongous giraffe chuckles. Speckle rolls his eyes at her and continues struggling to drag his salad closer to the entrance of the giraffe-sized house.

“Need some help, Squirt?” she offers. Speckle stands back up and relents immediately, a far cry from his reluctance to let Mrs. White carry it.

“Fine, go ahead. Just  _ don’t eat it!  _ I’m going to have it later!” he demands sternly. Jojo, having just been a towering neck and head, reveals more of herself as her arm lifts up over the edge of Speckle’s indoor deck and moves to the box. The salad that had given Speckle so much trouble is lifted up into the air like it’s nothing. 

She starts to move it back inside but stops. The rat notices that she’s looking at him like she’s expecting something.

“...What?” he asks awkwardly.

“You usually squeak your little head off about being able to do it yourself. I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right without it.”

He gives her a long, unamused stare before taking a breath and letting out a single piercing  _ Squeak!  _

With the transaction between them complete, Jojo nods and carries the salad the rest of the way inside her house. For her, all that means is that she moves her arm over to his little work area and sets it down for him.

“Thanks,” he says before walking inside after her.

“Woah,  _ and  _ thanking me? What happened today? You’re like a whole new rat!” she inquires in genuine bewilderment. Speckle flinches and looks up at her, their eyes meeting for the first time since he landed.

“Jo, do I actually treat you that bad…?” he asks with a hint of shame in his voice. After the events of the day, their usual exchanges just don’t feel right.

The giraffe looks down at him and smirks like she’s expecting him to say ‘Gotcha!’ at any moment. But when that doesn’t happen and the rat only looks more worried as the silence continues, she realizes how serious he’s being.

“Oh, wow. You’re not kidding. Something  _ did  _ happen today. Okay, Speck, spill the beans,” she orders, her neck moving closer to the edge of his living space so that she can position her head better to hear him. Both of her arms lift up and cross against the deck for her to lean on, letting him know that she’s not leaving until he levels with her.

Normally, he would fight her and try to keep to himself. Countless times he’s sulked in his workshop to clear his mind of any lingering harsh thoughts he might have had about her.

This time, though, he doesn’t feel like keeping his mind closed off to her. It has been too long of a day and he has an early morning tomorrow. Each moment spent trying to avoid her questioning will be one less he’ll have to spend going wild and soaking in the music of whoever might be playing live music tonight.

He sighs and sits in his beanbag chair, an object hardly bigger than one of his friend’s hooves.

“I just...went off on someone today after they had been nothing but nice to me…” he starts as he leans back and tries to focus his thoughts.

“What did they do?” Jojo asks patiently.

“...Used the word ‘ _ scurry _ ’ to define... _ someone  _ she didn’t like. I thought she was going to liken that mammal to a rodent or something…” he continues.

“Well...did she?”

“No! That’s the problem! She didn’t even say what I was offended by! I just... _ thought  _ she was going to and then finished her sentence to make her sound like a jerk...ugh, I’m such an idiot…” the little rat grumbles to himself as he buries his paws in his face.

“Did you apologize?” Jojo inquires with a lifted brow nearly the size of his body.

“Yeah, but only after she tried to apologize first. And I think that cheapens it a lot. I didn’t talk to her for a few hours after that and she was so gloomy the whole time...I think I really hurt her.”

A knowing look reaches the giraffe’s face.

“Well, would you look at that. I hoped it would happen someday but you weren’t making the outlook any brighter. I’m proud of you, honestly,” she tells him with a semi-serious look on her face.

“What are you even talking about?” he asks with a flat tone. He has a bad feeling about the way she’s setting up her next words.

“Little Squeaky Whiskers finally learned empathy! And here I thought you’d be cranky forever!” she laughs out loud, her voice booming over him like the music he’s looking forward to  _ will  _ be.

“Oh, shut that big mouth of yours before I fly one of my drones down your throat!” Speckle laughs back.

“ _ That’s  _ the Speckle I know and love!” she beams down at him. “And if you’re going to do that, make sure to pack it with that salad first. If I’m going to have to eat a rat, I might as well throw some greens in with you!” she giggles and pats her belly.

The joke would have landed a bit better if Speckle would have been able to see what she was doing. With her hooves back down at her side, all he can see of her is her neck and head again.

Speckle’s living quarters are about as unusual as the rodent’s attitude. Instead of settling for a cozy, appropriately sized apartment in Little Rodentia, he went and moved in with his best friend during his college days.

He needed a place to stay, she had the minuscule space he would need,  _ plus  _ she was more than willing to put up with him. If anything, Speckle has been her source of entertainment for the last few years.

What’s not to like about a rat who thinks he’s a thousand times bigger than he really is?

Jeanette Neckenthyme, or ‘Jojo’ for short, lives in a full-sized larger mammal house with only one level. For a giraffe, finding a place to stay with high enough ceilings is usually a daunting task. Jojo, however, has the advantage of being much lower to the ground than most giraffes. As long as a doorway is big enough for a medium-sized mammal to get through, she is usually okay.

A giraffe living with a rat.

What an odd arrangement!

If they hadn’t been in the same program during their time at Zootopia University, they probably would have never met each other. She can’t even explain why they hit it off the way that they did. The rat just seemed to take a shine to her as soon as they were assigned to the same group during a project.

He might have a smart mouth sometimes, but it keeps her mind active. Nothing stirs the creativity like scheming up some killer comebacks.

Speckle squirms around in his beanbag chair as he tries to stand back up.

“Jokes about  _ eating me  _ aside, how was your day?” he asks casually. Jojo lifts her arm back up and leans it against the overgrown windowsill so she can rest her head on her hoof.

“Oh, you know. Just working. Wasting away to the system while you go off and have fun adventures without me…” she pretends to pout. The rat quirks an eyebrow at her and she immediately breaks character to smirk at him.

“Oh, yeah. Safety meetings and moose jerks.  _ Totally  _ adventurous,” he replies flatly.

“Moose? What moose? You didn’t say anything about a moose,” she prods. Speckle sighs and gives up trying to stand for the moment. The beanbag squishes under what little weight his body exerts on it. 

“One of the employees from the night shift took one look at me and started going off about how I wouldn’t be able to work there and how he wouldn’t feel safe if I was the one responsible for his safety...or something like that,” he says. Jojo flinches at this news. She knows the rat well enough to understand what sets him off and what brings him down.

“Yikes...was this before or after the thing with the other mammal? The one you apologized to?” the giraffe asks with another uncharacteristically concerned look.

“Before…”

“Ah. Probably why you were on edge when she said that stuff, right?” Jojo offers. Speckle gives her a weak shrug and turns to the side a little bit so he can face her better.

“Dunno... _ maybe _ ...still no excuse, though,” he states firmly.

“True...true...but maybe if you figure out  _ why _ you do these things, you can be better prepared for it next time so that maybe you won’t do it again. Hm?” she explains to him. He looks at her for a few silent moments before giving her a small nod. She gives him one of her normal teasing grins and reaches a hoof to him.

Most rats would squeak and flee at the sight of a much larger mammal reaching for them.

But Speckle knows her too well. He doesn’t even flinch as she gently places the tip of her hoof against his side and gives him a reassuring nudge. He lifts a paw and returns the gesture.

Now they’re  _ both  _ smiling.

“So...you going to sleep pretty soon?” Jojo asks after returning to her previous position. “It seems like you had a long day.”

“Yeah, I had a long day, but if I go to bed  _ now, _ I’ll just be lying awake thinking about everything again,” he answers. She tilts her head, nearly a dozen times his size, at his response.

“So, what are you planning on doing? I still have to eat, and I  _ need  _ to get out of the house for a little while.”

“I was going to go out pretty soon,” he tells her. Her ears flick up, creating a slight breeze that Speckle can feel moving down at him. Her interest appears to be perked.

“Where?”

“To a club.”

“Which club?”

“A  _ night  _ club.”

“Tell me right now before I actually eat your salad and possibly you with it.”

“Okay, okay!” he chuckles, pretending to cower away from her. “Want to check out the  _ KnockTurn _ ? Their ceilings are pretty high up and I  _ know  _ you like the food.”

She looks excited at first, but her face falls after she remembers something.

“Squirt...you  _ do  _ remember what almost happened last time, right?”

Speckle shivers at the memory of almost being stomped on by a pair of dancing wolves who were too caught up in the beat to watch where they were stepping. It’s only by random chance that he managed to get out of there and back to the safety of Jojo’s lap.

“Yeah...not doing  _ that _ again. I’m not getting anywhere near the dance floor this time , I promise,” he tells her firmly.

“But don’t you want to dance…?”

“I can dance just fine on any of the tables. One of those tables is about the size of a rodent club anyway, it’s not like I’m going to fall off or anything.” She looks down at him as she ponders his resolution to his near-death experience. It’s not a terrible idea, if she’s honest. She can keep a much better eye on him if he’s right there next to her, so she won’t have to worry about him dying the whole night.

And it’s not like  _ she’s _ going to dance.

She might be playing kitsitter to a college graduate, but it’s Speckle. Maybe she’ll be able to sneak some footage of those dance moves of his to tease him with later.

“Okay, fine, you win…” she jokingly whines. “You going to take a shower anything before we go?”

“Nah, I’ll do it when we get home.”

“Alright then, let me just get my blanket. Bit chilly out there tonight,” she says as she rolls herself away from the window platform and pushes her wheelchair across the floor of the relatively large room. Speckle hurries down his ramp and launches himself onto her shoulder at the very last moment, startling her a bit but not halting her movement at all.

“Don’t fly under the wheels, now!” she urges, only half-joking. The little daredevil nearly gives her a heart attack on almost a daily basis.

“I’ll save that trick for when they move me to train in Tundratown…” he complains up at her. She laughs as she continues down the hall to her bedroom and expertly maneuvers the wheelchair through the doorway.

“I  _ said  _ it would be cold, Squirt,” she teases in her signature ‘I told you so’ tone. He waves off the criticism and looks to see where she’s going, robbing her of the argument she was hoping to start.

When she realizes that he’s not taking the bait like he normally does, she cranes her neck to look down at him with a pout.

“Wow, you’re no fun tonight…”

“Being  _ fun  _ requires energy. What little energy I still have is being saved for dancing, thank you very much,” he replies with his arms crossed. He tries to maintain his indifference, but the small smile that tilts his whiskers only betrays his actual mood around her.

“Okay then, Mr. Small and Serious. Which blanket should I go with for tonight?” she asks as she opens her drawer. Inside the wooden box are many different patterns covering many different blankets.

She likes blankets.

If she has to remain seated, she might as well be comfy. And for her, nothing is comfier than being all tucked in and warm while seeing the sights of the city around her.

“You know which one I’m going to pick…” Speckle tells her like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

And it is.

Jojo sighs and pulls out the only blanket in the drawer that had been given to her as a gift. The thick length of cloth has cartoon cheese wedges covering it, something that was both a joke and a heartwarming sentiment when he gave it to her.

She argued that he just got what he wanted to eat.

He argued that it just means that she’s  _ cheesy.  _

Either way, he tried to surprise her with it on her birthday. This didn’t work out as he planned, since it was a futile effort for him to drag the massive box inside and open it without catching her attention.

When she saw the tiny bulge under it, trying to drag it to her, she almost cried.

It might have been the cheapest gift he gave her that year, but it definitely meant the most to her just for the mental image alone.

She unfolds the blanket and starts pulling it over her legs so she can tuck it in securely. As soon as she’s done, Speckle jumps down onto her lap and takes his usual place. If only she could feel him there…

“Onward to adventure, my friend!” the rat squeaks up at her overly dramatically. She glances down at him before tugging the blanket just enough to knock him off of his paws. Once he’s settled against her, she returns to the main room of the house and gathers her things to leave.

“Any progress?” Speckle asks as he sees her work station half-covered in papers and open desktop monitors.

“Today? Nah, not really. Still working out some things. Don’t worry your little head, I’ll get it eventually. Not everyone can crap out a new project in a few days like you can,” she teases.

“Hey, don’t hate me because I’m fast!” he objects.

“So why  _ should  _ I hate you then?”

“Hate me because I’m totally not paying for admission this time,” he grins. She stops the chair and shoots him a threatening look.

“...You know, on second thought, go climb back in that drone and get the salad. I think I’ll just eat in tonight.”

Speckle laughs off the further threat of being eaten by her and pushes himself closer against her to get some blanket twisted around him.

“...You’re lucky that you know how to be cute.”

“Cow, I’m adorable.”

This time she practically smothers him in the blanket, though he knows how gentle she’s being. She would never  _ actually  _ hurt him. 

She rolls them outside and makes sure to lock everything up. Now that he’s back outside, Speckle notices that it  _ has  _ gotten slightly chilly since he got back home. Not enough to warrant a jacket, but enough for him to nest himself in the warmth of her blanket. The giraffe towering over him, probably a thousand times his size, shivers hard enough for him to feel it too.

“Hey, when you go back tomorrow, make sure you have them show you how to fix the heating machines around here. It’s too cold!”

“Jojo, it’s supposed to be early Spring. I can’t just change their planned seasons for you…”

She pouts, but something snaps her out of it.

“Oh, yeah, you got a call earlier.”

“I did?” Speckle asks, sitting up a bit straighter to listen.

“Yeah, someone named  _ Dawn  _ or  _ Darn  _ wanted to talk to you about some kind of incident you had today. Guess that must have been the thing with the moose?” she guesses.

Speckle feels a shiver pass through him, and this time it’s not because of the temperature.

“Dawn  _ Bellwether? _ ”

“Yeah, that’s it. You know her?” she asks with a hint of teasing.

“...Jo, that’s the  _ assistant mayor  _ of  _ Zootopia! _ ” the rat squeaks up at her in shock. The giraffe sits there waiting for the imminent ‘Gotcha!’, but like last time, it never comes.

“You’re...serious, aren’t you?” she asks slowly.

“Dead. Serious. Jojo, I  _ told  _ you that she was overseeing the inclusion initiative!” Speckle bemoans while tugging on his whispers to try to pull the focus away from his current panic attack

“When? I don’t remember you saying  _ anything  _ about that!” she tries to argue.

“Last week when you were on the couch and I was on the armrest! We were watching Bojack Horse! I  _ told _ you all of this!”

“Wait...are you talking about when I fell asleep while you watched your show? Speckle, you know I was asleep for that, right?” she asks worriedly.

The rat is silent for a few moments, internally stewing in this revelation. But he knows what happened earlier today when he took his anger out on someone. Jojo, of all mammals, doesn’t deserve the attitude he tends to give her.

But there are other ways to get back at someone.

“You...you didn’t hear my confe-...” he starts, but purposely holds back and shuts himself up after giving her just enough of the word to figure out what he was going to say.

“Your what?” she asks with a sense of urgency.

“Nothing…” he practically whispers, pretending to be crestfallen over her ignorance of the conversation.

“No, Speckle, I want to hear what you have to say! What did you tell me last week?”

“Jeanette, it’s nothing. Please...just let it go…” he pleads. Using her whole first name  _ and  _ drawing up some fake sniffles?

She’s powerless to stop him.

“Come on! Don’t leave me in the dark! You’re gonna drive me crazy!” she whines about while wheeling herself down her driveway and onto the sidewalk. All around them, the light of the city glows brilliant shades of every color known to mammals. The nocturnal crowds are starting to form at the more popular nighttime establishments, including the fast food place that sells some kind of bug-meat based sandwiches. Speckle’s never been and Jeanette would  _ never  _ go.

The sight of the wheelchair-bound giraffe seems to be blatant enough for the rest of the animals passing them to know to give them some extra room. The going is slow and steady, but that’s what happens without a personal vehicle. She’s never owned one and so far, hasn’t really wanted to. There’s public transportation for when she needs to get across the city and her family are more than willing to drive her if she needs to leave Zootopia for any reason.

The  _ KnockTurn  _ is luckily just down the road from her house, so she doesn’t even need to wait for the bus. She’d rather enjoy the lights anyway.

Speckle sits on her lap and imagines he’s being driven around in some sort of humongous giraffe car. He never usually gets to be this high off the ground unless he’s in his workshop or flying one of his drones. Jojo offers him a leverage unlike any other mammal has ever been willing to allow him.

He enjoys the lights and sounds of the city too, but he would rather see and hear them from much farther up in the sky. Down at this level, he can still see the disapproving looks that the larger mammals always seem to give him.

To some of them, him being outside of Little Rodentia is nothing but an inconvenience to them. Even though a lot of rodents have jobs outside LR, they just can’t get it through their heads that Zootopia is supposed to be for all mammals, big and small.

When he’s with Jojo, he notices some of those same looks being directed at her.

Apparently her height, even while sitting, just makes some mammals overly nervous for no reason, like she’s going to wrap them up on her neck like a snake if they’re not careful. It boils his blood when he sees those looks aimed her way.

Tonight seems to be a good night, however. The mammals they pass, a majority of them canines and other medium-sized predators, pay them little mind as they make their way to their favorite nighttime location.

Soon enough, they can see the dim neon sign hanging over the doorway, with a few wolves hanging out outside and chatting with each other. Even from his place on Jojo’s lap, he can already feel the pounding bass vibrating every cell in his body into a state of heightened euphoria. He can’t make out what song it is, but it  _ feels  _ nice.

The canines don’t even look at Jojo as she rolls up to the door and reaches out to knock. They’re probably the bouncers that are waiting to see if she knows the knock to get inside and don’t want to give away the fact that they’re listening. Hopefully at least  _ one  _ of them remembers the giraffe from last time.

Jojo is hard to forget.

Instead of any kind of drum pattern or tune, the giraffe knocks on the door  _ once  _ and then turns the doorknob as many times. After the single action of each motion, she moves away from the door. A few seconds of silence later, the door clicks open and a burly looking wolf peers out at them. He’s taken aback a bit when he first sees who is trying to enter, but a spark of recognition flashes across his face when he sees the rat on her lap.

“Oh, it’s you two. Back again?” he asks dryly.

Speckle gives him a single squeak. It’s not any kind of word, but more a rodent way of signaling approval. 

“Aight, just...be careful this time, yeah? Saw what almost happened last time and I  _ really  _ don’t need that on my list of things to deal with. Got me?” he booms down at the young rodent so that he can be heard over the thumping sound of music flowing from behind him.

“I know. Just going to stay at a table for tonight. Got work in the morning anyway!” Speckle replies. The wolf gives him a nod and steps aside for them to pass by, but also making sure that Jojo doesn’t have any trouble wheeling herself through the doorway. The club itself is on the bottom floor of the building, but luckily there is an elevator big enough for Jojo to fit her neck into.

The interior of the main level is rather bland. During the day, the business functions as some sort of counseling facility. They’ve never really looked around enough to figure it out entirely. They just know to duck through into the elevator as soon as they get in.

Speckle chuckles as the cheesy elevator music plays, trying to overpower the music that’s practically shaking the walls. The empty but pleasant elevator tunes are such a stark contrast from the beats that he can feel is his paws. It almost feels like he’s attending a live show held at a supermarket.

Inside and away from the chilly night air, Jojo untucks herself from her blanket a bit. She doesn’t take it off, for Speckle’s sake. He’s still nested on her leg and she might accidentally toss him off if she moves it too much.

After a few seconds of the elevator music being progressively drowned out by the approaching sound of  _ actual  _ music, the two friends hear a  _ ding  _ that signals their arrival. Most patrons use the stairs, so there isn’t anyone waiting to get in when the doors open.

Their ears are immediately filled with the heavy, wall-shaking sounds of live music being played. Each pounding of the drum nearly lifts Speckle off his friend’s lap and every growled lyric sends a shiver down Jojo’s long neck.

The room is lit mostly by neon and strobe lights, with the brightest spot being the stage where a group of canines are playing. The singer appears to be a tall arctic wolf with vibrant neon colors dyed through her fur. The rest of the band is composed of other canines, including a red fox, a coyote, a dingo and, amazingly, a scrappy looking female fennec fox on drums. With her small limbs, one might assume she wouldn’t be able to reach her own kit.

She apparently found a way.

And the drums are hers for the  _ beating. _

She’s like a savage ball of energy, her whole body flailing around and trying to keep up with her own frantically-paced beat. There’s so much energy flowing from her and the other members of the band that Speckle can’t help but vibrate excitedly with joy.

The music being played isn’t really inside his comfort zone, but it sure  _ sounds  _ like fun. All he needs at the moment is to take his mind off of the day he had...and the upcoming call with Bellwether regarding it.

He liked talking to her for the brief times they had when he was signing up for the initiative, but the last thing he wants to think about is Rudy and what he said.

Not to mention that Speckle practically told another worker to go  _ die… _

The rat shakes his head to jostle away his lingering anxiety. It’s not time to think about that right now. Now it’s just him, his best friend and some loud music and flashing lights.

Jojo moves herself over to one of the largest tables that is meant for the rare larger mammal patron to sit at. Only one side has a booth, while the other has optional stools to sit at. This works out for her because the stools can easily be cleared away to make room for her wheelchair.

She does this with minimal effort, even from a sitting position. In a few short seconds, she’s taken her normal place and has positioned herself so that she’s facing away from the wall and can easily see the stage.

Speckle jumps from her lap onto the table without her having to tell him to.

He knows the drill by now.

A few moments after parking themselves, a skimpily dressed arctic fox struts up to the edge of the table, barely able to see over it because of its size compared to her. She had seen the giraffe rolling in, so she was expecting her, but what she  _ wasn’t  _ expecting was to come face to face with a small rat staring over the side of the table at her.

The newer waitress lets out a surprised yip and hobbles back a few steps before catching herself.

Speckle squeaks once at her.

“Woah!” Jojo chuckles down at the startled vixen. “Y’aight there?”

The waitress looks up at the only mammal she thought she was supposed to be serving. Seeing the rodent sitting on the table next to the towering cow makes it so much more apparent how drastic the size difference is between the two.

“I…” the vixen stutters before clearing her throat and giving herself a few seconds to regain her composure. “Yes, I’m fine. Sorry for the reaction, I just...wasn’t expecting that. Sorry about that.”

Speckle tilts his head at her.

“So, uh...welcome to the  _ KnockTurn.  _ Got a few bands lined up after  _ Black Lily Sunset,  _ with  _ Rage Against the Cage  _ closing us out for the night later on. Would you two like anything to eat or drink?” she tries to recite through her nervous stutter.

“Strawberry juice,” is all Speckle asks for. He has plenty at home to eat when they get back. While Jojo orders her dinner, the rat watches the band perform and tries to ignore the curious glances that the vixen keeps shooting at him. He doesn’t take it that personally, since she’s looking  _ up _ at him instead of  _ down _ . She doesn’t resent him for being there, she wants to know more. The feeling of being interesting to someone sends a shiver down his spine.

As one song ends, one of the more inebriated wolves in the standing crowd decides to get mouthy with the drummer of the band, accusing her of not actually playing because there’s no  _ way _ someone her size could move that fast. After a brief screaming match between the two that gives the other band members a chance to take a drink, the feisty fennec takes up her sticks and starts wailing away on her kit like there’s no tomorrow. Without any music playing around her, it becomes obvious very quickly just how authentic her skills are. After nearly ten minutes of pure stamina, she finishes her impromptu solo and sneers down at the embarrassed wolf. He sways a bit before giving her a quick nod of defeat. After that, he’s down for the count at one of the tables, hopefully drinking some coffee to wind himself down.

Speckle can’t help but vibrate with joy over the smaller mammal proving that she’s not  _ just _ as good as she says she is, but she’s that good while being at a disadvantage. It really hits home to him how important it is for him to get out there and show what a rodent like him can do. The inspiration he feels swirling in his chest is exactly what he wants others to feel when they look at  _ him.  _

“Hey, Squirt, you’re shaking the table,” Jojo says through a mouthful of crunchy greens covered in yellow shreds. He snaps out of his focused state and looks around, finally noticing that there’s a shot glass full of bright, pink liquid sitting next to him. Jojo had already been served her food and must have been munching away as she and every other patron in the room watched the argument play out.

At least it was entertaining and they got a pretty sweet drum solo out of it. But Jojo could tell right away that it meant a lot more to Speckle than it did for her.

“Juice!” Speckle squeaks before pulling the straw to himself and drinking heavily from it. His favorite kind of juice, usually so hard to find in stores, is always kept in stock at the  _ KnockTurn.  _ His friend watches with a smirk as he practically drowns himself in the tangy liquid.

“Saw the new girl looking at ya,” she teases. “Am I going to have to break her heart and tell her you’re more into  _ fennecs?”  _

Speckle shoots her a rude gesture with the paw that isn’t holding his straw in place. By the time he stops to take a breath, the shot glass is nearly half-empty.

“Geez! You better be glad that thing didn’t have alcohol in it!” she says.

“No,  _ you _ better be glad,” he shoots back.

“...That’s true,” she admits with a smile. “Last thing I need is to chase a drunken rodent driving a drone around... _ again.” _

“Hey, I’ve been clean! No drinks since that night, just like I promised!”

“...Yeah, I know, Speck. Thanks.”

The two don’t say anything to each other for a few minutes after this exchange. He sips his shot of juice and she finishes her food while the band plays their last few songs.

“Thought you wanted to dance?” Jojo pipes up once she’s cleaned her plate.

“I will. Maybe. Depends on who plays. I like the energy of the ones playing now, but it’s not really music I can move to unless I, you know...start slamming my head into everyone around me.”

“Sounds pretty fun to me,” she smirks.

Speckle takes the opportunity to stand up and walk over to her arm. She already knows what’s coming, but that doesn’t stop her from bursting into barely stifled giggles when the much smaller mammal starts bopping his head into her along to the beat of the live music being played.

“Okay, okay! Stop!” she begs as she tries to regain her composure. “They’re going to think I’m laughing at  _ them _ !”

Luckily, there’s no chance of them even  _ hearing  _ her over their own noise, so she’s safe from their wrath. They’d also be much less likely to call out a wheelchair-bound giraffe than they would one of their own.

After a few more smacks to the noggin, Speckle gets dizzy and has to sit down for the rest of the  _ Black Lily Sunset _ performance. They retain their energy up until the last song, where they fire on all cylinders for five whole minutes before finishing the set and collapsing into a gasping heap of panting canines.

Their heavy breathing and the panting of every other patron in the club creates a humid fog that tingles Speckle’s nose something fierce. There’s a primal urge in the very back of his mind to run.

_ The predators are tired. _

_ Scurry while you have the chance! _

He shivers violently and bops his head against Jojo a few more times to rid himself of these thoughts. They clash with the kind of mammal he likes to see himself as.

Once the band manages to stand up and clear themselves and their instruments off the stage, there’s a brief period of time in which a different set of instruments is arranged. This time, instead of a more classic garage band setup, there seems to be a whole assortment of weird percussion instruments and electronic circuit board...things.

Jojo and Speckle share a look.

Whoever is playing next will be a much different experience than the first band they saw.

But Speckle can feel his energy rising up once more. That familiar tingle of excitement hits him when he realizes that they might be in for a one-mammal electronic show next.

Just as he suspects, the rest of the stage props that are brought out appear to be lights of all shapes and sizes. Looks like they’re going to be treated to a lights and sounds show.

By the time a dhole in a multicolored jacket walks casually onto the stage and sits down at his station, Speckle had finished his first juice and ordered a second. Jojo sips at a comparatively small cup of tea. They don’t have any cups quite big enough to suit her but she makes do. 

The dhole is smaller than a wolf but slightly bigger than a fox, and this particular mammal is a bit heavy for his species. Jojo and Speckle lean forward a bit, curious about this species that neither had seen before.

The mammal on stage seems to take his sweet time trying to arrange his buttons and dials in the exact way that he wants them. Meanwhile, the standing crowd on the dance floor becomes more impatient as each second ticks by.

Another wolf, equally as drunk as the last heckler, decides to speak up when his temper reaches its boiling point.

“YOU GONNA START ANY TIME TONIGHT?! WHO THE HECK EVEN ARE YA?!” 

Apparently the wolf spoke the magic words that the performer was waiting to hear.

It’s like a switch gets flicked in his head and all of a sudden, he’s no longer the quiet, meandering canine who had just been sitting on that same seat. A microphone flies up to his muzzle and he shouts the words  _ “KEN DANGER” _ into it as loud as he can. His voice comes out sounding digital and robotic, scaring a few of the wolves standing right up close to the speakers.

The spontaneously energized mammal jumps up and cranks a few knobs on his electronic board. Immediately, a piercing whistle sounds out into the audience and makes every single canine shiver. To Speckle’s surprise, they don’t appear to be in pain. Whatever pitch the sound is, it is apparently doing more to make them all tingly inside than it is meant to hurt them.

Seconds later, Ken Danger moves to the side and picks up some drumsticks. A frantic, galloping drum beat joins the sound and starts to create the tempo for what kind of song he’s about to play.

Speckle can’t help but move his whole body to the building beat. Ken slows a couple times to tease his audience before building his beat to a high point and jumping back into his seat for a moment to switch to the next portion of the song.

All at once, the rat is almost blown back as his music comes bursting out in full, the actual melody finally able to be heard. It’s unlike anything he’s ever heard before. A mix of blasting drums, wispy whistles and foreign sounds assault his entire being.

But in a  _ good _ way.

He finds himself gliding around on the table, his body moving by itself. The familiar energy of completely losing himself in a jam finally reaches him and every worry he had before melts away into the distant background. All that exists now is him, the ground-shaking beat and his friend looking down at him from high above the table.

He can tell she’s smirking at him, but he doesn’t care.

This is what he has been  _ needing. _

_ The lights! _

_ The sounds! _

_ The crazed energy! _

It feels so good to just let loose and shake his tail!

If he still had a tail, that is.

All that he can shake is his little stump, but it’s good enough for him.

The crowd of mostly wolves, still high on the much darker music before Ken, don’t know what to think at first. The electronic music and galloping drum beats are vastly different than what they had been exposed to earlier. The high pitched sound tingled them pleasantly enough to open them up a bit, but the sheer amount of relentless thrashing of Ken’s poor drums is what fully brings them over to his side of the tracks.

Speckles absentmindedly wonders what Ken Danger would be able to achieve if he got together with that fennec vixen from  _ Black Lily Sunset.  _ Together, they might actually crack the planet from their assault on it.

The first song ends and Speckle finds himself squeaking out loud for more. Ken quickly moves into a less frantic but equally enjoyable song with a lighter pop sound. It’s a lot easier to dance to but doesn’t have the same insane energy as the first song, probably being used to give the canine a breather after his intro.

The crowd on the dance floor are panting loudly again and seem to appreciate the slight lull. Speckle can smell their combined breath and forces himself not to think anything bad of them for it.

This pattern goes on for a while, with Ken swapping between fast-paced blast tracks and softer songs to pace himself evenly. By the time he’s playing his last energetic tune, he’s panting wildly and can’t even sing in his robotic voice anymore. All of his energy is being used to power the limbs hitting the drums and turning the knobs.

Speckle had been dancing on the table most of the set, taking small breaks every so often to chug at his second and third juice. Jojo had maintained her smirk as long as he danced, doing her best to hide the fact that she had been recording him on her phone the entire time.

Even if he happened to see her doing so, he was too in the zone to process it as something to be angry about.

The final chorus of every instrument on stage sounds out as the lights all flash at once, signaling Ken’s conclusion of the set. He collapses into his seat and hangs his head as the lights fade out...except for one.

A large, white beam of light becomes the only source of light in the entire room.

And then the  _ howling  _ starts. Multiple different species of canines, all of them high on life and possibly other substances, all lift their noses to the makeshift moon and howl as loud as they can. They’re so loud that Speckle can faintly pick up the noises of howling coming from  _ outside  _ the room.

Great.

They started a howl.

Might as well join them!

The young rat lifts his chin and unleashes the longest, loudest squeak he’s ever managed to expel. It’s so shrill that it actually manages to overpower a lot of the wolves. Their ears catch on to the strange noise coming from somewhere else in the room and they cease their howling.

After a few moments, Speckle realizes that he is the only one left making any noise. The entire room full of canines are perked up and have their heads turned straight at him. 

He stops his squeak and suddenly feels very foolish for trying to include himself in something that seems to be very personal for them. It’s not a rat thing. Why did he suddenly feel so sure of himself?

With some many predatory eyes on him, he starts to hear that annoying little voice in the back of his head again, begging him to bolt so he doesn’t end up as dinner for one of these mammals.

_ Run! _

_ Scurry! _

_ There’s a hole in the wall! _

_ Hide in-! _

“Haha! Yeah! Right on, squeaky bro!” Ken Danger suddenly laughs in his robotic voice. The sudden presence of the performer who had their attention for the past hour jolts their attention away from Speckle, who nearly collapses in relief.

Ken blasts that loud pitched ringing sound one more time, mixing it up a bit so it sounds vaguely like Speckle’s squeak. The crowd shivers with energy again, like they had all just received an electric shock.

A few of the wolves turn back to him, but they seem to look at him with an air of familiarity. He returns their looks and realizes that he’s seen a few of them here before. They must recognize him from his previous nights here. If not him, then they  _ definitely  _ recognize the giraffe looming over everyone else.

As Ken thanks the audience for listening and enjoying his music, Speckle takes the moment to lay on his back and stare up at the ceiling. Whatever energy he had before, the hour long dance session had drained it. He can feel every muscle in his body suddenly aching like he had just gotten home from the gym.

He blinks as he feels a warm and fresh-smelling gust of air blowing down on him. Jojo smiles down at him, her smirk no longer present. She knows exactly how tired and shaky he probably feels. Knowing him as well as she does, she’d wager that he’s about ready for bed.

“Tired?”

“Mm…”

“Ready to get going? You got work in the morning.”

“Nnnnnnnmmmmm…”

“You look exhausted. Looks like you had fun, though!”

“Nnnnyeeaahnnn…”

“I’ll just pay the bill really quick and then we’ll get you back home, okay?”

“Mm…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure they’ll play a different night. You can come back on the weekend and stay all night, but right now you need your rest.”

“Peh…”

“Hold on, just sharing something really quick and then we’ll get going.”

“Eh…?”

“What? It would be  _ selfish  _ of me if I kept these sick dance moves to myself!” she cackles like an evil witch. In his eyes, she might as well be.

“DON’T YOU DARE!” he snaps awake. With her whistling like she thinks she’s innocent, and the potential fallout of anyone in his family seeing that video, the call with Bellwether in the morning is the  _ last  _ thing on his mind.

But maybe that’s okay.

He’d all but forgotten Rudy and the stress of the situation is just a lingering memory.

That’s why he came to the  _ KnockTurn _ in the first place. So, all in all, it was an alright day and a pretty decent night.

Speckle and Jojo managed to last another day without killing each other, so that’s a plus.


End file.
